"As the fitness industry becomes more sophisticated, hotel facilities are expanding to meet the demand created in local health clubs," explains Marianne Battistone, president of Sports/Dance/Fitness Training Institute, which develops hotel workout centers and spas. "New hotels aren't built anymore without fitness facilities," she says. "In fact, it's become quite a competitive arena for service-oriented hotels as they all vie for the most up-to-date equipment."

The new, two-volume Zagat United States Hotel Survey (Zagat Survey, $9.95 each), which covers 850 hotels in 38 cities, also includes a sports facilities index. Some of the exceptional health centers cited offer top-of-the-line equipment-found, for instance, at the fitness center in the Hotel Nikko in Chicago and the Westin Hotel in Washington, D.C. There also are some surprising extras such as indoor and outdoor jogging tracks, 36 holes of golf, plus a full spa program at the Four Seasons Resort and Club in Dallas; or the indoor Olympic-size pool at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead in Atlanta, for which guests are offered "disposable" bathing suits (made of tear-resistant, paperlike fabric with a Du Pont fiber called Tyvek) that are "guaranteed for three swims." (The Four Seasons Hotel, 900 N. Michigan Ave., also provides disposable bathing suits.)

So, for the fitness faithful around the world, traveling no longer means giving up those regular morning runs or vigorous weight-room workouts. At the Plaza in New York, president Ivana Trump has decreed stationary bicycles for all of the hotel's 80 suites. Currently, just two suites have bicycles. All of the hotels in the Morgans Hotel Group are developing fitness programs, from Lifecycles at the Royalton in New York to a 5,000-square-foot health club at New York's Barbizon, including a 20-by-50-foot swimming pool. Massages will be available on a 24-hour basis, as will personal trainers (except at the Royalton). "We are here to satisfy our guests, and this is where the demand is right now," said the late Steve Rubell, formerly co-owner of the Morgans Hotel Group. "The rooms with the bicycles are now preferred over the luxurious rooms with the fireplaces."