Padel Courts for Hotels, Spas and Leisure Facilities: The UK Operator’s Guide

Adding a padel court to a hotel, spa or leisure facility has moved from a speculative idea to a commercially proven decision. From just 68 courts in 2019, the UK passed the 1,000-court milestone in July 2025, a full year ahead of the LTA’s original target.

Player numbers have grown from 15,000 to over 400,000 in the same period. That is not a niche trend. It is the fastest growth of any sport in the UK, and it is happening right now, among exactly the kind of guests that hotels, spas, country clubs and leisure operators are competing to attract.

This guide makes the case for why padel belongs on your facility’s agenda, not just as a sports amenity, but as a genuine wellness and social offering with strong commercial returns. We also cover what operators need to know about getting a project off the ground.

The numbers behind the growth

The LTA launched its five-year Padel Opened Up strategy in September 2024. By mid-2025, it had already hit nearly every Phase 1 target set for the end of 2026.

Courts reached 1,000. Annual players reached 400,000. Public awareness of the sport climbed to 43%, against a target of 40%. These are not projections. They are verified figures from the LTA’s own tracking data.

The booking platform Playtomic reported that UK players booking courts more than doubled during 2025, rising from around 76,000 in January to over 172,000 by December. First-time sign-ups grew by 117% across the year.

Industry analysts at FMG Consulting project the UK could support 7,000 to 8,000 courts within the next decade. Right now, there are roughly 426 players for every court in the country. Demand is dramatically outpacing supply.

The investment community has taken notice. Game4Padel, backed by Sir Andy Murray and valued at £27 million, has raised over £10 million and operates 26 UK venues. David Lloyd reported a 33% profit increase in 2024, partially attributed to padel expansion. These are not vanity projects. They are bets on a market that professional investors believe has significant room to run.

The padel player is your ideal guest

Understanding who plays padel matters as much as understanding how many people play it. The demographic profile of the typical padel player maps almost precisely onto the target guest of a premium hotel, spa or country club.

The core age range is 25 to 45. Approximately 40% of players globally are female, making padel one of the most gender-balanced racquet sports in existence.

According to Oxygen Consulting’s 2025 UK Padel Report, the most affluent areas in England have more than six times the number of padel venues compared to the least affluent. London venues command between £60 and £100 per hour for court hire, placing the sport firmly alongside golf in terms of social and financial positioning.

The celebrity association reinforces this. David and Victoria Beckham, the Prince of Wales, Andy Murray, Elle Macpherson and Jurgen Klopp have all been photographed playing. Padel has become a social signal in its own right.

Perhaps most relevant for hospitality operators is what padel players do after their game. Research by Deloitte found that 57% of amateur padel players consume a drink after their match. A Soul Padel customer survey found that 75% cite the social aspects as their favourite feature of the sport.

The sport is always played in doubles, creating a built-in social dynamic of four people per booking. This is not a sport people play alone and leave quietly. It generates dwell time, F&B; spend and return visits.

Padel is a wellness amenity, not just a sport

The most forward-thinking operators are not filing padel under sport. They are filing it under wellness, and with good reason.

A typical padel session burns between 400 and 600 calories per hour, comparable to running or cycling. The short explosive rallies and rapid directional changes deliver high-intensity interval-style cardiovascular training.

Unlike tennis, padel is played on a court one-third of the size, with softer balls and lighter racquets. It is genuinely low-impact, accessible to guests recovering from injury, older guests seeking sustainable exercise and complete beginners who can play a competitive game within a session or two.

The mental health credentials are equally strong. The social and strategic nature of padel supports dopamine and endorphin release. Research from the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine identifies social sports as a significant factor in reducing rates of depression.

Several leading UK hotels have already made this connection explicitly:

Fairmont Windsor Park in Berkshire positions its padel courts within its spa and wellness offering, alongside a cryotherapy chamber, Himalayan salt room and hammam.

Estelle Manor in Oxfordshire places its courts immediately adjacent to a 3,000-square-metre Roman-inspired bathhouse spa.

Gleneagles in Perthshire sells Padel Retreat packages that bundle court time and coaching with spa treatments for non-playing partners.

The Retreat Elcot Park in Berkshire sells padel equipment through the spa reception, physically connecting the two experiences.

Internationally, the padel-wellness integration is even more advanced. Mandarin Oriental offers a Cliffside Padel Retreat at its Uluwatu estate in Bali. The luxury travel publication Renae’s World has described padel as the new it-amenity at luxury hotels globally.

For operators with an existing spa or wellness offer, padel is a natural extension that adds an active dimension to the guest experience and gives people a compelling reason to extend their stay.

The commercial case is strong

Beyond the guest experience, padel makes sound commercial sense for venues that already own land and have operational infrastructure in place.

Padel Consulting UK modelling for a four-court covered venue in Greater London projects gross annual revenue of between £467,000 and £782,000. That breaks down across court hire, coaching, corporate events, sponsorship and ancillary revenue from F&B;, retail and equipment hire.

Operating expenditure in year one is estimated at £220,000 to £350,000, with a target break-even of three to five years at utilisation rates of 50 to 60%.

Per square metre, padel generates nearly double the revenue of a five-a-side football pitch and up to six times more than a tennis court. The four-player-per-booking format is a key driver: every session fills four paying spots simultaneously.

For venues in wetter regions of the UK, covered courts can increase revenue by 30% or more by enabling year-round play. Over three-quarters of new UK padel courts being planned now are indoor or covered.

Venues that already own land and have existing teams typically see shorter payback timelines than standalone padel businesses, because the baseline costs of site management and staffing are already absorbed. Sports centres that have added padel report 20 to 35% increases in user retention.

Simon Pearson, Group Racquets Manager at David Lloyd, summarised it well: padel keeps members engaged, gives them more reasons to visit, builds communities and offers increased value from membership. For hotel and resort operators, the same logic applies to room bookings, spa visits and repeat stays.

What operators need to know about design and installation

A standard padel court measures 20 metres by 10 metres, with a total footprint of around 231 square metres including the surrounding structure. Three padel courts fit into the footprint of a single tennis court, hosting 12 players at once versus four.

For indoor or covered installations, a minimum ceiling clearance of 6 metres is required across the whole playing surface, with 8 metres preferred above the net line for more competitive play.

Cost benchmarks from the LTA’s 2025 Construction Guidance Note: a single outdoor court with lighting and groundworks costs approximately £71,000. Two outdoor courts come in at around £148,000 and four at around £268,000. Adding a canopy cover to four courts brings the total to around £584,000. These figures exclude planning costs and professional fees.

Planning permission is almost always required in the UK. The glass walls stand three to four metres high, and noise from ball impacts is the most common source of objections. The typical project timeline from concept to opening runs between six and twelve months, with planning being the longest phase.

For premium hospitality settings, panoramic courts are worth serious consideration. Their larger glass panels and minimal post structures create an open, photogenic aesthetic that aligns with luxury brand positioning and can command 20 to 70% higher hourly rates than standard courts.

Ongoing maintenance costs are modest: the LTA recommends budgeting £1,500 per court per year for surface, lamp and column maintenance, with LED lighting running at roughly £1 per hour per court.

How Alkaline 360 can help

At Alkaline 360, we design and build complete wellness environments. Padel court integration is the natural next step in that offer, and we are now working with operators who want to incorporate padel as part of a broader facility vision rather than as a bolt-on afterthought.

Whether you are planning a full wellness facility refurbishment that includes padel, or starting with courts as the anchor and building a wider programme around them, we bring the same turnkey approach we apply to spas, gyms and thermal suites. That means taking a project from initial concept and feasibility through design, planning support, specification and build, with a single point of contact throughout.

The operators winning right now are thinking about padel not as a sports facility decision but as a guest experience decision. Where does the court sit in relation to the spa? How does it connect to the food and drink offer? What does the journey look like for a group arriving to play and then moving into the wider venue? These are the questions we help clients answer.

If you are exploring padel as part of your facility development, we would be happy to have an early conversation. There is no obligation, and the sooner a project enters the design process, the more options remain open.