Understanding the Global Spa Industry: Spa Management

493 Pages·2008·1.8 MB·English

by  Gerry Bodeker

Understanding the
Global Spa Industry
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Understanding
the Global Spa
Industry: Spa
Management
Marc Cohen
and
Gerard Bodeker
AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEWYORK • OXFORD •
PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO
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Preface
With the spa industry fast becoming the world’s largest leisure
industry, an accompanying need for information arises. The
industry is naturally looking to define best practice, determine
successful business models, prioritise human resource issues
develop standards of quality control, create effective market-
ing strategies and examine past and future trends. Yet, while
the services, products and profits of the industry have grown
exponentially, the information gap has grown wider.
At the inaugural Wellness Summit in Hua Hin, Thailand ,
organized by Spa Asia Wellness Associates in October 2005,
we, the editors of this book, had a conversation about where
we could a book with information on all of the above points.
From related yet somewhat different academic backgrounds,
we converged on a need to fill gaps in our own knowledge
about this vast global industry.
One of us, Professor Marc Cohen, a medical doctor and
academic at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
University in Australia, had been working for 3 years with the
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group spa division on incorporat-
ing wellness concepts into spas. He has also been working on
developing curricula for university-based wellness education
which required justifying that there would be vocational out-
comes for gradates with wellness qualifications. At the time
this was not an easy task for there was an absence of academic
literature on the spa industry with no books or academic pub-
lications outlining its scope.
At the same time, Professor Gerard Bodeker, a public health
specialist at Oxford University, UK, and Columbia University,
New York, had focused for many years on the health tradi-
tions of developing countries and had, earlier that year, pro-
duced for the World Health Organization the WHO Global
Atlas on Traditional, Complementary & Alternative Medicine.
v ● ●
Preface
From this global perspective the international march of the spa
industry seemed a health trend worthy of documentation and
study.
Over lunch we asked ourselves how could it be that despite
the spa industry being a multibillion dollar global industry–
growing at a rate of approximately 20% each year – spa litera-
ture has remained in the domain of consumer trade magazines
and coffee table books? Where, we wondered, could we find
a reference that would address the professional, management,
design, therapeutic, personnel, ethical, ecological and societal
dimensions of the global spa industry?
And what of the industry itself – its needs for focused knowl-
edge, the need to learn from those who have already traveled
down the road that so many are embarking on? It seemed
unlikely that no other industry of comparable size has such a
gap in publicly available knowledge of relevance to the indus-
try’s own growth and maturation. In finding an absence of
published analytic literature, the decision was made to make a
start on filling the knowledge gap in one of the world’s largest
and fastest growing leisure industries that includes the well-
ness and tourism sub-sectors.
O n reviewing our ambitious proposal, Elsevier Press, the
world’s largest academic publisher, came back and asked us
for not one but for two books – one on the business dimensions
of the spa industry and another on health and therapeutic
services. This volume is the first of these books. It’s companion
volume on spas health and the wellness experience will follow
in the coming year.
When considering a structure for this book it seemed natural
to refer to five elements, which are widely used in the world’s
traditional health systems and seem just as applicable to busi-
ness. Accordingly, the book focuses on ‘ planning ’ , ‘ profit ’ ,
‘ product ’ , ‘ planet ’ and ‘ people ’ .
The “ Planning ” section outlines the historical and evolution-
ary development of spas along with current spa trends and
benchmarks.“ Profit ” presents an outline of the business mod-
els and processes, accompanied by accounts of how spas have
operationalised and been incorporated into luxury hotels. The
“ Product ” section outlines the branding, product develop-
ment, retailing, technological devices and marketing aspects
of spa business. “ Planet ” addresses the designed and built
environment along with environmental sustainability. And
the “ People” section focuses on leadership, recruitment and
training, along with the ethical dimensions of corporate social
responsibility and working with indigenous communities and
traditional knowledge.
● ● vi
Preface
As editors, we would like to acknowledge and thank the
chapter authors for their significant contribution of knowledge
and time. These authors are all industry leaders in their own
right who have helped to create the industry and who draw
on countless years of collective experience. Prior to this, their
expertise was available only to a select few – to members of
their own organizations or via private industry reports and
consultancy services. They have generously shared much of
their proprietary knowledge and experience for the sake of
advancing the industry. In this, they have worked to establish
the beginnings of a platform to determine best practice, mech-
anisms of quality control, and systems of accountability and
catalysed a large step forward towards industry-wide stand-
ards of professionalism.
What they have highlighted is that the standards they out-
line for best spa practice will, in turn, have ripple effects to the
wider worlds of healthcare, health service delivery – including
future health centres and hospitals – and for new levels of
responsibility and quality in the global hospitality industry.
It is also obvious that the spa industry is part of a wider glo-
bal movement towards sustainability, equity, consciousness
and connection and that the global spa industry can be seen
as a response to humanity’s desire to live well in the world. It,
therefore, has the potential to contribute to a positive trend in
human evolution.
We hope that this text will play a positive part in this evolution.
Marc Cohen & Gerard Bodeker
vii ● ●
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Contents
List of Contributors xiii
List of Figures xxiii
List of Tables xxv
Part 1 Planning 1
1 Spas, wellness and human evolution 3
M arc Cohen
2 American and European spa 26
Mary Tabbachi
3 The spa industry in Asia 41
Michael Loh
4 Spa industry benchmarking 53
Julie Garrow
5 Trends in the global spa industry 66
Susie Ellis
Part 2 Profit 85
6 Business plans for ‘ state of the art ’ spas 87
A ndrew Gibson
7 Spa feasibility: Steps and processes 110
R ichard Dusseau and Mathew W. Brennan
8 Spa design, development and construction 130
S eán O’Connor
ix ● ●