Profile Worldwide

London New York
Paris Shanghai
 Link Journal

Leader
Journal
Back Issues

Name:

E-Mail Address:


  Unsubscribe

Leader Home | Profile Main Site | Print page | Mail a friend

SPA VIEW

Greg Payne, Group Spa Director for IHG Asia Pacific, talks about the rise and rise of a global spa culture.

I recently met with the editor of a spa magazine who told me that there would be more than two hundred spas opening in the Middle East over the next two years.

At a micro level, IHG will be opening more than thirty spas in Asia Pacific alone in a similar timeframe and we are obviously involved in a much larger number of projects as we develop our pipeline for the future.

The key driver of this expansion is the explosive growth in hotel development and the fact that spas are now seen as ‘must have’ facilities within the hotel environment. We are seeing a shift in the mindset of consumers in the way that they perceive spas.   We will always be seen as luxurious & indulgent experiences, but the evolution is that spas are increasingly seen as essential components of work-life balance. 

'Time for me'

In this hectic world in which technology is becoming ever faster and it seems that we’re never out of communication, the thought of ‘time for me’ is seen as an essential component of preventative health.  This subtle shift has had a dramatic impact on the growth of spas in urban environments as consumer demand and the related financial feasibility studies dictate that spas become part of the hotel’s competitive offering.

 At the same time, spas are appealing to more and more people.  We have more first-time spa guests than ever before.  This is largely due to media exposure, with lifestyle magazines ‘talking up’ spas.  In this respect, spas are offering an aspirational experience that our guests will talk about long after their vacations are over. 

We are also seeing the emergence of new geographical consumer segments.  Traditionally in Asia, the highest consumer-spending segment has come from Japan, but this is now being supplemented with the influx of the Russian market.  The emergence of India and China will have a huge impact in the near future – consider how a hundred million outbound Chinese by 2015 will influence spa concepts, design and operational needs.  We need to understand where we sit within this growing and segmented market in order to be successful.

Some questions to ask are:

“Are our guests likely to be first time or experienced spa consumers?”

This will affect design elements – will we be warm and welcoming or stunning and sensory?  Our tone of voice: will we be offering treatments that ‘energize’ or ‘offer rebirth’?

Where are our guests from, and what do they value?

We know that Japanese culture places great value on bathing experiences.  Understanding the culture of our target segments will help us to understand what facilities are needed, the degree of separation between sexes and even on the level of privacy. 

As the industry continues to expand, one of the keys will be to make sure that
‘the fit is right’ when matching the profile of the spa and potential managers.
Most spa managers that I have come across aspire to a group role or at least to working in a large spa that would command industry respect.  The reality is that the nature of a group role is to maintain a helicopter view of a broad territory, and moving people-orientated managers away from working hands-on with therapists and interacting with guests can be a rude awakening.  Moving managers from small intimate spas to large functional business units can bring a similar result.

Everybody dreams at some stage of his or her life of working on a tropical island,
although acclimatization or lifestyle expectations can quickly turn this into a
nightmare.  Similarly, we have issues when we take experienced staff from
Southern Asia and transplant them into the harsh winter climates of Northern
China.

The bottom line is that we are living in exciting times.  The spa industry is
evolving.  The key to success is to understand what your target markets value,
and to build coherence through alignment with your concept, design and service
offering and, most importantly, through building up a profile of the management
team.

Greg Payne has been involved in the leisure industry for more than fifteen years. 
During that time he has opened and operated more than fifty spas across North
America, South America, Asia, Australasia and Europe.  He has been working as
the Group Spa Director for IHG Asia Pacific for the past four years and is based
out of Singapore.  He can be contacted at gregory.payne@ihg.com