Leading Stories

SPECIAL TREATMENT

Heather Blankinship is the Spa Operations Director at luxury hotel group Amanresorts International. After thirteen years working in the spa industry, Heather’s philosophy is based on a strong belief that every spa should draw on the traditions, remedies and culture of its unique location to provide a truly holistic and life-enhancing experience for each guest.

As a young girl, I had always aspired to be a dancer, but I had to give up this dream following a car accident when I was a teenager. After the accident, my body needed time to heal and I was drawn to the benefits of natural medicine and healing therapies. It was my own personal healing experience using these methods that inspired me to begin a career in the spa industry.

In 1997 I trained as a massage therapist at the Ironman competition of Kailua-Kona in Hawaii. I knew immediately that this was the career path for me. I had visions of creating holistic healing centers where people could come to transform their body, mind and soul.

Fusing tradition and experience

I wanted to experience different cultures and healing traditions and so, ten years ago in 2000, I set off on my travels across Europe and Asia. It was during this time that I started to combine my learning from the massage and spa education course in Hawaii with my upbringing in the holistic environment of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, with the experience I gained from the different European and Asian cultures and traditions.

I have a passion for creating environments where you can walk in and feel the spirit of the spa. I want the look, feel, smell and taste to be organic and luxurious. I believe it is essential that our guests are greeted with a warm and open heart and that our therapists know how to care for the body intuitively. I aim to create a place where our guests leave our spas feeling a deep sense of appreciation from their experience.

Enriching guests' lives

I consider myself an eternal student of life, always learning and evolving to further my knowledge of holistic health, nutrition, healing, yoga, meditation and mindfulness. Through my work, my aim is to help others to live a balanced, healthy and pain-free lifestyle. I hope that by creating culturally authentic and holistic spa concepts, we can enrich our guests’ lives at Amanresorts, one treatment at a time.

Each Amanresort is harmoniously blended into its local culture and traditions. We have 24 resorts located in Bhutan, Cambodia, China, France, French Polynesia, Indonesia, India, Laos, Montenegro, Morocco, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the USA.

At Amanresorts, we believe that a guest’s spa experience should go hand in hand with their discovery of the local culture and its traditions. The world’s healing arts are based on thousands of years of history. We draw on these traditions across all our spa facilities to offer our guests a deeper experience of each resort’s cultural environment. We seek to create an authentic look and feel and offer a treatment menu that is reflective of the local healing traditions and life philosophy. We make use of the beneficial health practices and natural remedies that have been passed down the centuries in each culture.

Life in balance

Our spa concept is an extension of a lifestyle, a way of living that promotes
life in balance. Wherever our guests are staying, whether it is in Indonesia, China, India or Europe, we ensure that nothing stands between our guests and their fullest appreciation of the uniqueness of their surroundings. Combining the intellectual pleasures of close cultural and social observation with physical relaxation by means of soothing massages and healing treatments instills an immense sense of well- being. It also provides a stress-free path for guests to make the most of their new experiences.

A special place

It is difficult for me to say which of our spas is the most extraordinary. There are many amazing aspects to each location. If I had to choose, then I would say that our flagship resort - Amanpuri – has a special place in my heart. There is a long tradition of healing and massage in Thailand. The people are naturally warm-hearted and service orientated and it is always such a pleasure to work with our therapists there.

The facilities at Amanpuri are stunning. We have a Thai herbal steam room that is deeply therapeutic and we have an amazing fitness facility and state of the art pilates studio.

In search of transformation

The spa industry has come a long way during the past few years. Quite rightly, it is no longer only about pampering and pleasure. People are becoming more conscious about how they want to spend their time and money. They want to seek transformational experiences with depth and meaning and they have high expectations when entering a spa.

We aim to provide our therapists with intuition and support so that they can learn to expand their own consciousness and be aware of their presence and the effect that they can have on a guest’s spa experience. Learning to be truly present with another human being is one of the greatest gifts we can give each other. When you combine that with the knowledge of traditional healing philosophies and techniques, you have a very transformational experience.

The spa of the future

We aim to provide a truly holistic and individual experience for each of our guests. We also aim to ensure that our spas are as environmentally sustainable as possible. We build our facilities consciously with integrity and respect to the land, to its particular culture and to its specific traditions. Across all our spas we offer an exclusive range of handmade products created from essential oils that are derived from wild and organically-grown plants and herbs.

I believe that new technologies of sustainability, combined with the knowledge of the past, will create the spas of the future. Spas of the future will return to the principals of the past, of life and living, balancing body, mind and soul.

In January 2010, Amanresorts opened the Aman Spa at The Connaught hotel in London, with a menu based on key treatments reflecting the renewing traditions of China, Thailand, India and the Americas. To find out more about Amanresorts, visit www.amanresorts.com.