WELLNESS SPA
KATIE BARNES » MANAGING EDITOR » SPA BUSINESS
ESPA LIFE Susan Harmsworth M
ajor new hotel in London. Check. Owners who rec- ognise the importance of wellness and are willing to
invest heavily in it. Check. A full-time dream team to deliver the offering. Check. It’s no wonder Susan Harmsworth is
beaming about ESPA Life, her first wellness concept which was unveiled at the Corinthia Hotel in London, UK, in July. Its opening marks the arrival of a new spa and wellness concept which combines a luxury spa and beauty offering with complementary thera- pies and targeted fitness and rehabilitation services. It promises to be “a leading influ- ence in the next generation of spa.” ESPA has built a strong reputation as an
innovative spa management and skincare company and if you were going to bet on who in the industry could create an holis- tic wellness concept, its founder and CEO, Harmsworth, would be a good choice. The five-star Corinthia Hotels group
thought so too and made a bold move by investing £20m (us$32.7m, €23m) in the debut ESPA Life to help put its lavish £305 (us$500m, €350m) flagship property – just a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square – on the map (see p54). It needed something to impress its high-end clientele: the type of people who are used to staying in the best
ESPA revealed its new, fully integrated wellness spa concept in London in July and has two more sites underway. Founder and CEO, Susan Harmsworth tells us about her vision for the future of spas
hotels around the globe, or who wouldn’t blink at investing in one of its 12 super- chic residential apartments to be sold at top market London prices. And the 3,300sq m (35,000sq ſt) four-storey, ultra-modern ESPA Life stands out for many reasons. Harmsworth has hand-picked a number
of specialists in spa, beauty, fitness, holis- tic health and complementary medicine to create the team staffing the spa. In addi- tion, naturopaths, nutritionists, homeopaths, medical herbalists, osteopaths, acupunc- turists and physiotherapists are all on the payroll full-time. Revolutionary lifestyle programmes, cov-
ering everything from biological ageing, detox, sleep, weight-loss, pregnancy and general vitality, have been carefully put together to deliver measurable results. On top of this is a full spa menu, a selection of very targeted and specially-created signa- ture treatments and a roster of beauty and grooming services. And while most wellness facilities are a
one-off, in ESPA Life Harmsworth has metic- ulously documented design and operating
ESPA Life’s targeted signature therapies (left); and its black and white, Chanel-inspired, décor (right)
protocols and created a template to roll it out. Work has already started on two more ESPA Life projects – one in Scotland, UK and one in Marrakech, Morocco – with a further three more definite sites in the pipeline.
IMPORTANCE OF EFFICACY
It took Harmsworth three years to create and perfect the ESPA Life concept, although the seed of the idea has grown over many years.
“I started my career in more of a medical environment – in the late 70s and early 80s I worked in thalassotherapy centres and at Grayshott Hall [a UK destination spa] which had doctors, osteopaths and acupuncturists,” she says. “However, in the late 80s the spa market swung away from health to focus on luxury, relaxation and indulgence. “Health, prevention and ageing well are
passions of mine. I’ve watched a lot of peo- ple I love go through extended periods of illness, having been healthy until their 80s: my mum died of Alzheimers and my dad had a stroke aſter he nursed her.” It’s no surprise then, that the wellness
menu at ESPA Life is well-thought out. Te complementary therapies include naturop- athy, nutrition and diet, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, osteopathy and cranial osteopathy and physiotherapy. “We made a huge list, researched every modality
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