Spa Travel, a Healthy Niche, Moves into the Mainstream

The spa industry experienced a healthy 2013 just as the spa experience is becoming more accessible and mainstream.

“The long term trends are really positive,” said Lynne McNees, president of the International Spa Association (ISPA).

“We started doing this research ten years ago and since then have seen an overall increase in revenues of 31% and in visits of over 20% — and that was with the recession in the middle of that decade.”

Travel Market Report spoke to McNees about spa travel’s growth and how travel agents can tap this healthy market.

What’s the most significant indicators of spa travel’s growth?
McNees: I think it’s the growth in the number of spas. In 1999, there were 1.5 spas per 100,000 people in the U.S. Now there are 6.4.

What that means is that the spa experience has become more accessible and mainstream, and touches more consumers. That helps us to educate them in the value of a spa visit.

A lot of your members are day spas. Does that mean anything for travelers?
McNees: Hotels have gotten more creative about spas. Since there are so many spas now, hotels frequently work with local spas to either have therapists come to guest rooms or work with local spas on packages and deals.

You now see spas everywhere, even in airports. The whole spa mentality resonates no matter who you are or where you are.

How can travel agents sell spa visits?
McNees: The big thing from an agent perspective is that the consumer is looking for a take-home experience. It’s a variation of the restaurant industry’s farm to table, except this is spa to home.

You take the experience you get at the spa and bring it home. Agents should emphasize this long-lasting effect of going on a spa vacation.

And agents should keep in mind that where spas used to be a hotel amenity, now the spa experience is incorporated into the hotel’s branding. That means it goes beyond treatments to the cuisine, to wellness programs and to fitness.

Have there been changes in why people to go spas?
McNees: The number one reason is to learn to manage stress. The more the spa owner can do to educate the spa goer – or travel agent – about what they or their clients get out of the spa experience, the better.

Has the spa experience changed? Are spas, for instance, reaching out to millennial clients as hotels are doing?
McNees: Absolutely. What you’re finding—which you wouldn’t have seen even two years ago—are 30-minute express treatments, which is what younger people tend to favor.

It used to be that technology was not permitted in the spa but that doesn’t work with millennials, so there are changes there as well. Even resorts that used to market only week-long visits are offering day visits and express treatments.

And in the past you couldn’t get a glass of wine in a spa, that’s no longer the case. We’re now all about incorporating the spa experience into your lifestyle.