INTERVIEW
“The reason why I like concepts rather than spa brands is because you can take the essence of what the concept is and adapt it”
T e inaugural Saray spa features six treat-
ment rooms (four for ladies and two for men) and a hammam. A sense of place is given through the colour scheme of earthy hues and gold, with Middle Eastern inspired treatments such as a Spiced Pomegranate and Moroccan Yoghurt Detoxifier and an Arabic Coff ee Awakener. T ere’s also a bespoke product line that’s been made using native spices such as frankincense and myrrh. Other product houses include Phytomer and June Jacobs. While the plan is to roll out Saray spas
across the Middle East – they will soon open in Libya, Qatar and Dubai – Abbajay sees no reason why it couldn’t work in other inter- national locations. “T e great thing about Saray is that you can model ‘the restful place for weary travellers’ idea. T is is the reason why I like concepts rather than spa brands
– because you can take the essence of what the concept is and adapt it.” In terms of pipeline developments, forg-
ing strategic partnerships with management companies and product houses is something else that Abbajay is working on. “I’m in dis- cussion with a few companies about this, but I can’t divulge anything more yet,” she says. At present, Marriott has 260 spas, 170 of
which are managed in-house and Abbajay says that it wants to keep this balance. Yet she is in the process of evaluating its third- party spa management companies. “We need to make sure that they’re in alignment with the Marriott culture, expectation, standards and philosophy and to ensure that the com- pany is secure: there are a lot which are going out of business at the moment.” When it comes to product houses, she says:
“Marriott is a very trusted consumer brand, so we have partnered with professional spa prod- ucts such as Kerstin Florian, Naturopathica, Éminence, Aveda, La Prairie and June Jacobs.” Yet one of the challenges Abbajay foresees with developing consistency across an inter- national, growing spa portfolio is the logistics of shipping products. “It’s going to be quite diffi cult, but I am a realist,” she says. “If we can get 50 per cent and then modify for con-
SHARILYN ABBAJAY
“Secondly, we’re going to focus on education.
The initial aim is to create consistency across Marriott spa journeys in terms of pre- and post- visit stages and the entire experience
tinents that we can’t reach, without losing the foundation of what we’re trying to con- vey, then we will be successful.”
SALES CULTURE Another key priority in Abbajay’s strategy is to focus on retail within the spa environment.
“T ere is no sales culture in our facilities and that’s something we really need to focus on. We’re not starting right at the beginning because there are already many channels of retail that are activated – through the spa, giſt certifi cates, hotel shop, e-commerce and in-room amenities. But, fi rstly, we need to identify all of these and look at how they’re performing and what we can work on.
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Training is the key – if I had $100 to spend on either marketing or training then the wise choice would be training: because that becomes your marketing. We need to bring retail and sales experts in to help us develop a training programme and this will probably take another six months, if not longer.” T e aim is to get 30 to 35 per cent of spa
revenue coming from retail globally. “T at would be a huge achievement,” she says. T e retail sales percentage, however, is
only one part of the equation. Abbajay says that, moving forwards, the idea is to have a full spa fi nance matrix in place: “One thing I’ve learned about Marriott is that its [spa] matrix is measured very closely to how its hotels are measured,” says Abbajay. T e spa matrix will cover a myriad of aspects from revenue per available treatment room hour to the utilisation rate, and it will eventually include more detailed numbers such as what area of the spa is bringing in the most profi t
SPA BUSINESS 1 2011 ©Cybertrek 2011
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