Because it is my Bread & Butter...

...Therefore I make sure it happens !

~ Below article was authored by me for BW Business World Hotelier - May'2016 issue

Professional wellness facilities have become an integral part of not only leisure destinations but also city hotels. As per the HVS report on Hotels in India 2014 69% of travellers say they are likely to use spa during hotel stay. Further, Indian branded hotel rooms are also pegged to grow by 45% by 2018, a Euromonitor report of global travel trends 2012 says.

Spa and salon services are highly technical in nature and require large focus to deliver superior quality to the discerning consumer. They can tie up a lot of senior management time and are very labor and energy-intensive. At the same time, spas can also be a high profit margin earner for the hotel and a popular spa facility can be a reason for the hotel guest to extend their stay by a night, ultimately increasing the bottom line.

 Therefore, the question hotels nowadays find themselves facing is no longer whether or not to have a spa and salon service at their facility, but whether they should run it themselves or get an expert to manage it. Having an expert run the show for a wellness facility brings in deep focus to deliver superior guest experiences and generate higher monetisation - because it is the experts "Bread & Butter" !

What can a professional Spa brand do?

Pre-launch phase: Feasibility studies and business plans

A professional Spa brand works in close partnership with the hospitality players to manage, monetize and maintain their wellness facilities. It takes complete ownership and engages with the hotel right from the start to initiate feasibility studies, facility development, market study, service menu development to setting up of SOPs and launching the facility. A brand with experience and a holistic approach is able to make the wellness facility profitable from day zero.

 The focus for a professional spa brand would be to work closely with all partners and entrench itself very well, like any other department of the hotel. While taking the onus for bringing in expertise, external spa brands would need involvement of the hotel to integrate the facility well with other hotel offerings in order to get the desired business outcome. A case in example from our own Tattva Spa experience, one of our destination resort partners was doing x amount spa business. After we joined hands, we recommended expansion of the spa facility with a guarantee of 50% increase in spa business. We detailed the commercials with respect to investment and returns. This fiscal, the expanded spa facility delivered 75% increase in the business, and our hotel partners, needless to say, are thrilled. 

Focus on Training and Technology

It is not only about having excellent technical knowledge and marketing strategies, but also about being able to provide constant technical training, thereby upgrading the skills and abilities of the staff members on a consistent basis. Technology enabled business management and marketing capabilities help professional spa and salon services engage consumers better. Technology platform, which ties in all the back-end processes, helps identify trends and issues and also escalates issues, resulting in faster resolutions.

Marketing and Consumer Engagement

Beauty and wellness as a service category are ‘high-touch’ services (figuratively and literally). With a focus on ensuring superior experiences, the spa brand is able to make experiences memorable for consumer hence driving repeat business. A well-known brand that a consumer trusts in the category has a strong pull factor. The brand-pull also helps in driving non-resident business to the spa facility. Wellness memberships programs, gift voucher sales, spa products sales all add significantly to the top-line contributions and with an outsourced facility, adds to the bottom-line as well.

 A hotel spa business is moderately different from a regular spa business set on a high street or mall location. The operating hours, the guest expectations on service and products, the seasonality factor, the specific wellness needs of a traveller, all call for a very focused strategy. For the destination resort spas, integration of the wellness activities like yoga and meditation, as well as complimenting with wellness oriented F&B (food & beverages) services is really important. We have seen in our own experience that a well thought through and conducted service can increase revenue contributions from a hotel spa to the hotel revenue top-line by up to 200%.

The Bottom-Line

It is also a reality that not all hotel spas are successful. This usually occurs when hotels are looking at outsourcing as a cost-cutting approach only and not a way to enhance customer experience. Hotels that look for ‘out-sourcing’ of the spa facility in order to only save costs, end up offering poor quality services to their consumers, reducing the returning % of their guests and thereby hurting the hotel brand. The spa operator in such a relationship also does not do well and struggles to deliver quality. The association fails. ‘Out-sourcing’ has to be looked upon as a partnership, for seeking expertise and bringing about focus on quality and to jointly increase the revenue pie.