Tag Archives: About.com

Report re European Spa Summit at Beyond Beauty Expo in Paris

Report re European Spa Summit at Beyond Beauty Expo in Paris
by Susie Ellis, SpaFinder Insider

It’s always a treat to be able to attend a spa conference outside of the U.S. There are fresh viewpoints, new spas to discover, and emerging trends to observe. There’s just nothing like being present to witness actual dialogue and the exchange of ideas – sometimes quite different than my own. beyondbeauty 785349 Report re European Spa Summit at Beyond Beauty Expo in Paris

One example is the French woman who dominated the microphone during question and answer periods and minced no words in voicing her opinion that the French have led the spa industry for centuries and don’t need to be taught anything from foreigners. Another example is the gentleman from Austria who was embarassed by, and felt strongly that the number one problem for the European spa industry is the lack of gracious hospitality. Interesting perspectives.
There were approximately 20 presentations and 30 speakers. Here are a few tidbits, which resonated with me:
1. Marion Schneider, from Toskana World in Germany, spoke about the importance of teaching your staff English – or at least enough English so that they are comfortable conversing with guests. As she so clearly said….”if you don’t teach your staff English, they will hide.” I had never really thought of it that way, however I think she makes a good point. The language barrier isn’t just an issue when it comes to not being able to understand the guest’s needs, but it is a further impediment because the therapist feels intimidated and therefore is shy about interacting with guests at all.
2. Kevin Turnbull, from SpaFinder EMEA in the UK, used Bill Clinton’s successful campaign slogan as a reference point – he suggested that instead of the line, “It’s the economy stupid,” our industry adopt the line “It’s the customer stupid.” We do have a tendency to spend a lot of time discussing industry issues, when in fact we should be paying more attention to the consumer and their likes and dislikes. Kevin also made a good point that when it comes to the European spa industry, “we are going from wellness to wellness.” The roots are wellness, and we are back there again.
3. Raoul Sudre, from Aspen Spa Management in Florida, gave several talks. My favorite one was his presentaiton on spa trends (of course). Raoul has been in the spa industry 50 years and I respect his perspective on trends as a result!
It isn’t just about the amount of time he has been in the spa arena (half a century!)…after all there are many others who have been in the spa industry that long: Deborah Szekely (Rancho La Puerta and Golden Door), Enid and Mel Zuckerman (Canyon Ranch), Sheila Cluff (The Oaks), and Dorthy Purdue (Champneys) come to mind. However, Raoul has a broader global view because unlike the others mentioned here, he did not focus primarily on one or two properties during his career. Rather, Raoul traveled all over the world for decades and has consulted and developed spas in more countries than probably anyone else.
A few trends he predicts:
  • Greater customization
  • No more locker rooms
  • Adjusting spa design as people become more claustrophobic.
  • Change in terminology….i.e. the word spa will always have something else attached to it. Examples: Yoga Spa, Sexual Health Spa, Boot Camp Spa, Medical Wellness Spa, etc.
  • Energy medicine
  • Spa and fitness separating (I disagree with him on this one)
  • Spa packages are coming back “in” – but now they are packages including hydro and thermal treatments rather than facials and massage and such. georgeV 761474 Report re European Spa Summit at Beyond Beauty Expo in Paris

4. Christopher Norton, GM of Four Seasons George V in Paris, and his spa manager Verena Fox, gave a memorable presentation about their spa’s continued increase in revenue despite the challenging economic climate. They were very transparent with their numbers – which everyone appreciated. (Even the French woman who had been dominating the Q & A had something positive to say about their presentation!) Here is a recap of their yearly revenue in Euros:

2007-1.9 service, 258,000 retail, 5.6% profit
2008 2.2 service, 414,000 retail, 18% profit
2009 (year-to-date): on track to beat both service and retail and currently showing 19% profit!
Then the very astute Verena shared some secrets of how she made this magic happen: more sales training, more up-sell training, more day guests, inviting journalists for free treatments, offering free makeup sessions for clientele, encouraging men as guests (because they spend more money than women) and…..(this was a new one for me) training on how to wrap packages!
Oui, oui, ou la la!
**
Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/susieellis
**
If you wish to be put on a list that automatically sends my blog posts to your email, just let dulcy.gregory@spafinder.com know and she will add you to that list. Thanks so much!

Spas: Pay Attention to the New Book “The End of Overeating”

Spas: Pay Attention to the New Book “The End of Overeating“
by Susie Ellis, SpaFinder Insider

If you could see the book shelf in my office (and a list of all the books I have read in the past three decades) you might be surprised to see how many of those books have been about weight loss. Not only has this topic been part of my studies and lifelong career, (I wrote a research paper comparing children’s weight with IQ my first year in college), but I have also had my own experience with overeating issues. For several years of my life I was an “exercise bulimic” who ran marathons to support my habit of overeating which was the true goal of all that training. I mention this because it will help you put the following statement in context:

“I just finished what I think is the most important book on weight loss that I have ever read!”

Dr. David A. Kessler’s new book, The End of Overeating is currently #5 on the New York Times best seller list. (My prediction is that it will remain on that list for a good long time – at least I hope so!) endofovereating 791557 Spas: Pay Attention to the New Book The End of Overeating

This book really resonated with me. I can tell by all the underlining I did while reading it. Every page. Multiple times. Crazy! That’s because I kept turning the pages and saying…wow, that’s incredible. Wow…I didn’t know that. Wow…this is hysterical. Wow, this just makes me want to cry.

I am going to have to devote two blog posts to this book to share with you some of the pearls of wisdom I found within. It is my fervent hope that I can convince those who are interested in the topic of weight loss (and that is most of us) to buy the book or download it on Kindle ($9.99). Not only do I think that it has an important personal message for all of us, but I think the spa industry in particular can be seen in an entirely new light as a result. After all, spas – especially destination spas – are one of the few places left on the planet where solutions to the dilemma Dr. Kessler outlines can be achieved.

Here are a few tidbits to give you a sense of where this is going.

  • “hyperpalatable” (ideal combinations of sugar, fat and salt) foods are actually “altering the biological circuitry of our brains”
  • “where traditional cuisine is meant to satisfy, American industrial food is meant to stimulate.”
  • “Intentionally or not, industry activities take advantage of the biology of the brain, selling us products that alter our bodies.”
  • “the excitement in the brain generated by these multi-modal stimuli increases our desire for further stimulation.”
  • “the goal is to get you hooked” (craveability)

And in Dr. Kessler’s words:

“millions of people …don’t have any of the eating disorders we’ve learned to recognize and treat, but food is never far from their minds. And once they begin eating, they can’t seem to stop. Long after they’ve ceased to feel hungry, they’re still eating. No one has ever explained what’s happening to them and how they can control their eating. That’s my goal in this book.”

“…the struggle to resist certain foods isn’t unique to people who are overweight or obese–people who maintain a healthy weight also face this challenge. How can something as simple as a chocolate chip cookie hold such power over so many of us? I had to go inside the food industry and understand the workings of our brains to comprehend the essence of this struggle. The food industry designs foods to be powerful stimuli. And what is served in many restaurants is nothing more than FAT on FAT on FAT loaded with sugar and salt.”

“I wanted the answer to what would appear to be a simple question: why is it so difficult to control what and how much we eat? What I learned was that our brain circuits become rewired by certain foods, so that we end up wanting and eating more than we need. Naturally, my next question became: how can we alter our response to food? In more technical language, how can we make the needed “critical perceptual shift” that fundamentally changes the way we view food?”

In the next blog….solutions.

**
Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/susieellis

**
If you wish to be put on a list that automatically sends my blog posts to your email, just let dulcy.gregory@spafinder.com know and she will add you to that list. Thanks so much!

A SpaFinder Spa Trend Citing

A SpaFinder Spa Trend Citing

Susie Ellis, SpaFinder Insider

On our list of top 10 spa trend predictions for 2009 was “Casinos & Spas: A Good Bet” so I am pleased (and not surprised) that the New York Times had a large feature on this very topic in water club 725955 A SpaFinder Spa Trend Citingtheir Escapes section this weekend! Titled in the paper, “A New View of Atlantic City,” and online as “A New Side of Atlantic City: Spas,” the article talks about all the new luxury spas which “helped polish up the gambling resort and, in the process, created another reason to visit.”
This is what I had written in our trends report in November 2008:
Casinos & Spas: A Good Bet Placing a high-end spa in a casino hotel was a long-shot idea when Elaine and Steve Wynn (both Golden Door regulars) opened the first at the Golden Nugget Casino Hotel in the 1980′s. But today, spas in casinos have hit the jackpot, as they are some
of the highest spa revenue producers in the world. These world-class facilities are situated within hotels with hundreds (often thousands) of rooms, catering to a captive, free-spendinborgata 739649 A SpaFinder Spa Trend Citingg clientele that both appreciates pampering and sees the value of balancing both high-octane indulgence and recharging, healthy pursuits.
Now let me just pause for a moment and address the comment I recently received on one of my blogs from an anonymous source suggesting that naming trends in the industry is more like stating the obvious.
Well, I don’t think so. We do our homework. Having predicted many trends before they were ever big splashes in newspapers and magazines (spa lifestyle real estate in 2004, sleep health in 2006 and luxury detox in 2007 for example), I can safely say that our list is often a forerunner to the buzz that we see in that upcoming year.
Not that we are always right, however this casino and spa trend is an example of having accurately read the zeitgeist. Part of why we observe trends pretty accurately is that we are in tuned to what is in the pipeline, what consumers are responding to, and what the revenue and expense figures are for various types of spa establishments around the world. In addition we naturally mored door 748852 A SpaFinder Spa Trend Citingnitor macro trends which, included in 2009 for example, the huge economic crisis.
The casino and spa story in the New York Times included a large photo of the Immersion spa swimming pool with multiple lounge areas overlooking the city at the Water Club hotel. There was also a photo of the lavender-lit Jacuzzi with waterfall background at the Red Door Spa at Harrah’s, a shot of the men’s spa lounge at the Borgata, and a peek into a treatment room at the Qua Spa at Caesar’s.

Although they didn’t mention it, “wow” decor is one reason why these spas are popular – not only with hotel guests, but as this article points out, but also with locals and people who drive in for a day visit. Casino hotels usually spend a lot of money making their spas dramatic and “something to talk about.” After all, spas in casinos can make very good money.

But spas in casinos also drive room nights – something the writer, Shivani Vora, mentioned in this article numerous times. Saying “they are major selling points at the hotels,” “draw visitors,” and “another reason to visit” shows how obvious it is that spas do more for a hotel than just make money from massages and facials. I find this kind of ironic…because I notice that many GM’s of hotels treat their spa managers as if they are towel-boys (or girls) when, in fact, they often drive significant business to the hotel itself. What is also interesting (and this is the result of a study done by Mandarin Oriental a few years ago), is that spas are often responsible for the majority of a hotel’s PR. After all, is the New York Times likely to write about the gambling tables or the decor in thousands of identical rooms? But spas usually have great visuals, evoke a healthy and positive feeling to a place that is often associated with the evils of gambling, cigarette smoke, and drinking and eating too much – and, in this economy, the desperation of some of its patrons.

And since I mentioned the economy, it might be worth noting that Vora stated in the article, “most spas say that bookings are up or holding steady” and “weekend bookings are still at capacity.” While I am sure that these spas have been affected somewhat by the economic downturn, there is resiliency. Why? Another trend in our top 10 – Stressing De-Stress, which which by the way, was the topic of a February New York Times article – “In Tough Times, Spas Stress Stress.”
**
If you wish to be put on a list that automatically sends my blog posts to your email, just let dulcy.gregory@spafinder.com know and she will add you to that list. Thanks so much!

Roosevelt Baths and Spa Boost “Sanus Per Aquam”

little spa theater 714489 Roosevelt Baths and Spa Boost Sanus Per AquamDriving back to the city from the NYSPA meeting at The Sagamore, we were accompanied by Ingo Schweder (Corporate Spa Director, Mandarin Oriental ) and his delightful fiancé. We stopped at the Roosevelt baths in Saratoga Springs right next to the Gideon Putnam resort, which were remodeled into a beautiful spa just a few years ago. We were impressed with how the spa management maintained the original feel of “taking the waters” in this area, yet were still able to incorporate the services and products of a truly outstanding spa. I guess we aren’t alone; over the weekend the spa, which has 42 treatment rooms, was totally sold out!

And just in case we were wondering whether all the water in those baths is really mineral rich, each of us was treated to a glass of natural mineral water directly from the spring. Ugh, be forewarned – you’ll want to think “tiny sip.” But it did drive home the point that bathing in these waters is different than sitting in tapwater at home. Therapeutic benefits? Well, it certainly seems like a possibility.

**
If you wish to be put on a list that automatically sends my blog posts to your email, just let dulcy.gregory@spafinder.com know and she will add you to that list. Thanks so much!