TOP TEAM
KATIE BARNES » MANAGING EDITOR » SPA BUSINESS
HILTON WORLDWIDE
Hilton Worldwide boasts 256 properties that offer spa services and has over 110 spas in development. Key figures tell us about the creation of eforea – its first branded spa concept – and its ambitious spa rollout plans across the group
“I’d known Hilton Worldwide as a hospital- ity giant, but the reason I joined is because they clearly demonstrated to me that they were saying much more than ‘spas are important to us’ – they were obviously committed to evolving that side of the busi- ness,” says Ryan Crabbe, senior director of spa operations and development (the Americas) at Hilton Worldwide. Crabbe’s response echoes the thoughts
of all of the people in this feature and the numbers are compelling too: Hilton World-
wide has 256 properties that offer spa services, operates 245 spas in-house and has 113 more in development. While the veteran hotel company has
been running spas for decades (see p33), it has stepped this part of the business up a gear in the last few years – most notably with the arrival of its first in-house concept ‘eforea: spa at Hilton’ in 2010, which has 50 sites in its development pipeline. Eforea is the first branded spa concept for Hilton Hotels & Resorts, the flagship
brand of Hilton Worldwide. It is also availa- ble for DoubleTree by Hilton and Embassy Suites Hotels, Hilton Worldwide’s other full-service brands. As the company’s spa development pipeline is rapidly growing overall, there’s also talk of more branded, in-house concepts to follow – with Conrad the next obvious candidate. Here, top team members talk to us about
creating eforea, the challenges of developing and operating spa facilities worldwide and what else we can expect in the future.
VANESSA MAIN
Director of spa operations and development (Asia-Pacific)
WHAT’S YOUR ROLE? I have many hats as I work between spa development and operations for all Hilton brands across Asia-Pacific – a region that’s reasonably large and growing very rap- idly. We typically launch one or two spas a month and I currently oversee 39 spas and have 58 due to open between now and 2014.
When I first joined in 2008 I
was a one man band and I soon realised that we needed to grow our infrastructure in the field to effectively handle the volume of projects that are spread over such a large geographical region. A year ago Sean Walsh started
with us as senior manager of spa development and his sole focus is
to ensure we have a solid commercial strategy for development in China. I’ve now got the same position permanently based in Shang- hai. Operationally we have independent spa managers who are property based and three
people in regional roles who all assist in deliv- ering operational efficiencies and initiatives. Today, my job is much more strategic –
ensuring we have the right tools to deploy and execute new spa development and further establish Hilton Worldwide as a pre- mium spa operator.
HOW DO YOU WORK WITH THE REST OF THE SPA DIRECTORS AT HILTON? Tere’s no set rule, but we talk at least once a month. I’m regularly in touch with Tyra on the brand team, and [Hilton’s other spa operations and development directors] Sha- ron, Louise, Ryan and I are good at sharing best practice examples across regions. We’ve just had a week of face-to-face meetings to cement our global spa strategy and these usually only happen once or twice a year due to our intense travel schedules.
WHAT’S YOUR ROLLOUT STRATEGY FOR EFOREA: SPA AT HILTON IN ASIA-PACIFIC? We have an equal focus on new builds and converting our existing spas. Our next open- ings will represent our entry into the Chinese market and I am very excited about that.
There are currently five eforea spas open worldwide, including eforea at Hilton Queenstown in New Zealand
28 Read Spa Business online
spabusiness.com / digital
WHAT’S YOUR OVERALL ROLLOUT STRAT- EGY? The volume sits within the Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand, but we’re seeing a lot of movement within Conrad too. I’ve got 14 Conrad spas under development and the other brands are also growing rapidly.
SPA BUSINESS 3 2011 ©Cybertrek 2011
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