SUMMIT REVIEW What was your top takeaway from the
The SRI International research on wellness confirmed to me that the future of spas will be to integrate complementary medicine, fitness, nutrition and more advanced beauty to create a wellness approach which will offer longer lasting results. As a result of the GSS, we’ll also be working on our wellness tourism strategies for the spas we create. Anna Bjurstam, managing director, Raison d’Etre
I realised just how intrusive the web can potentially be and the apparent willingness people have to share all kinds of information. What also caught my attention is that the medical profession is now using the word ‘spa’ to introduce holistic and alternative health practices. This is a paradigm shift in the concept of spa and now we [MOHG] are adapting our strategy to ensure we’re clear about our services and philosophy. Andrew Gibson, group director of spa, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group
presence is now as important as traditional marketing so, if you don’t already have them, create your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare accounts today, if only to listen to what your customers – or competitor’s customers – are saying about you. Once you’ve done this, more active
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engagement involves linking, blogging and replying to people talking about you. While this can be costly in terms of time and exper- tise (new staff may be needed), you should join these conversations because they’ll take place whether you contribute or not. And there are also rewards – you can access cus- tomer opinions more cheaply than through focus groups and with higher participation rates than surveys. Identifying key contributors in relevant
conversations is the primary task of a social media strategy. Building a relationship with these central figures gives you greater reach
My take home message was the term ‘mash-up’ – we’re now seeing that the spa industry serves as a melting pot for previous disparate sectors such as complementary medicine, medical and wellness tourism, fitness, healthy eating, anti-ageing, workplace wellness and preventative and personalised health. When converged, these sectors form a US$2tn wellness industry. Dr Marc Cohen, professor, RMIT University
My thunderbolt moment came when Marc A Smith and Edie Weiner talked about cloud-mining and the possibility that different sources of information can come together to tell rich stories of people’s habits and lifestyles. This information gathering is still unexplored in our industry and has great potential but also ethical issues that need consideration.” Sheila McCann, director of spa – brand quality, Shangri-La International Hotel Management
Te summit was attended by 250 delegates from 40 countries
A major topic that spoke very powerfully to me is how critical it is for our industry to jumpstart initiatives to gather the mounting medical-based evidence that shows that numerous spa/wellness approaches work and to then communicate this to consumers and make it easily accessible to the spa and the healthcare industry. So far, our industry has been far too conservative in broadcasting its claims. Dr Pelletier really brought this message home to me in his keynote speech. Susie Ellis, president, SpaFinder Inc.
ocial media has become a major force, as people search for serv- ices or discuss choices online with friends. Building a social media
SOCIAL MEDIA, SENSORS & SPA
Following his keynote speech at the Global Spa Summit, social media expert Marc A Smith tells Spa Business readers how they can get the internet to work for them
MARC A SMITH » CHIEF SOCIAL SCIENTIST » CONNECTION ACTION CONSULTING GROUP
and builds brand champions – the independ- ent voices that can make (or break) you.
Get networking Te science which enables us to understand how all this works – social network analysis (SNA) – is an arcane area of research that has traditionally required advanced maths and computing skills. Luckily, analysing and
40 Read Spa Business online
spabusiness.com / digital
visualising networks is becoming easier and easier with new soſtware. I work with the Social Media Research
Foundation, whose primary project is to create a network overview, discovery and exploration add-in for Excel – the NodeXL Project for short – a free and open extension to the familiar spreadsheet. Using NodeXL, it’s easy to collect the network of people
SPA BUSINESS 3 2010 ©Cybertrek 2010
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