INTERVIEW PERSONAL FILE: Christopher Norton
Favourite Four Seasons spa: Jimbaran Bay – I gave birth to it, it’s important to me – and the Hong Kong city spa Favourite non-Four Seasons spa: the one at the Dolder Grand Hotel, Zürich Favourite treatment: a really, really good Balinese massage. And a massage treatment we’ve developed that’s on our menu in Paris, Tropical Magnolia What do you do in your free time? What free time? If I have any, I love spending it with family and a few very close friends Favourite book: Conversations with God, by Donald Walsch Favourite fi lm: T e Great Escape Favourite food: grilled fi sh Favourite place: wherever I am Who do you admire most in life? People who have the ability to stay young in their mind, people who keep growing and learning, and who keep their minds open What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? Never take yourself or others too seriously, but take your work seriously, and live every day like it’s going to be the last
- it’s a policy not to impose products globally, and spas have lots of autonomy in choosing products.
“It’s important,” he says. “If you walk into a spa in Bali, you don’t want to fi nd a typical French cosmetic brand on the shelves. You want to fi nd something made by a little old lady up in the mountains that has incredible heal- ing power and is rare and special.” Creating exclusive partnerships isn’t hard – providing their product to high-end spas with guaran- teed customers give suppliers a great benefi t, Norton says, and his team spends a great deal of time on merchandising.
DIVERSE DEVELOPMENT As the company’s spas vary greatly, so does the spa development process, with expenses, consultants and timelines diff ering depend- ing on the project and location; occupancy and capture rates vary too greatly to give one average, Norton admits. “In a good city spa, we’d look at treatment room occupancy rates of about 60 per cent,” he says. “At a city hotel we do about 16 to 20 per cent capture rate, but you can have 30 to 50 per cent outside guests. In resorts, some- times you look at capture rates between 35 and 55 per cent, because if you go to Bali you’ve got to have a massage. “You have to look at various measures at the same time. Instead
of looking only at how much we capture, we look at the quality of what we do, and we look at the revenue per available treatment room. T e quality part is as important as the quantity.” His team looks at a variety of other KPIs including total spa rev-
enue per occupied hotel room, RevPATH and spa retail revenue as a percentage of total spa revenue. T e spa task force has also put together a specifi c yield management protocol. “You should be sure to mix the occupancy of treatment rooms with the average price of your treatments and what you provide, whether you book one or two hour sessions and how you make the most of your square footage.”
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Places like Florence – which had no luxury hotel or spa until Four Seasons launched (above) – are important for future growth
T e task force has no infl uence over where Four Seasons is headed
next – headquarters decides on new development locations – but Norton has lots of thoughts on what areas have spa potential. Asia is still an important region for growth, he says, but somewhere like Florence – which had no luxury hotel or spa until Four Seasons opened there in 2008 (see SB10/3 p64) – is just as important for the company, he says. “You can have some incredible experiences in Europe,” he says. “Some of the Middle Eastern spas are going to be fascinating – we’re embarking on a ladies-only spa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which is going to be incredible, and we have an amazing spa in Doha, which would rival most facilities worldwide. And there are some beautiful spas in the US.” Four Seasons is currently under- represented in South America, and there’s also interest in going into Russia, he notes. “T ere has to be a global consciousness to make sure [what we off er is] quality, indigenous and exciting.” Wherever Four Seasons takes its spas, it’s an exciting time for Nor-
ton: “T e company is excited to take the spa seriously as we grow, and to make sure there’s a culture where we keep rising above the rest in terms of passion, quality of products, service, and results,” he says. “Spas make an incredible impact on people’s wellbeing, and, when you do it well, the feedback from your guests is very powerful and immediate and there’s great satisfaction to that.” ●
SPA BUSINESS 4 2010 ©Cybertrek 2010
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