PROFILE
GLOBAL SPA & WELLNESS SUMMIT SPECIAL EDITION
Susie Ellis
Infl uential spa commentator Susie Ellis has an uncanny knack for predicting the industry’s future. On the sixth anniversary of the Global Spa & Wellness Summit she helped pioneer, the SpaFinder president explains what drives her
RHIANON HOWELLS » CONSULTING EDITOR » SPA BUSINESS A
nyone who spends just a few minutes talking to Susie Ellis will know that she’s a consummate peo- ple-person: unfailingly warm and courteous.
T ey’ll also recognise how passionate she is about the spa and wellness industry she champions, both as president of SpaFinder
– the sector’s largest marketing and media company – and as a founding board mem- ber of the Global Spa & Wellness Summit (GSWS). But if they delve just a little deeper, they’ll also fi nd something edgier: a sharp business mind underpinned both by prag- matism and an ability to think laterally. Nowhere is this more apparent than in
SpaFinder’s annual Spa Trend Report™, which has won Ellis a reputation as a soothsayer since the fi rst one was published nine years ago. Over the last decade, she’s frequently been on target in identifying up-and-com- ing trends, including spa lifestyle real estate
(2005), sleep health (2007) and wellness tourism (2009) – so much so that, today, its publication is eagerly awaited by both the consumer press and the industry.
Bird’s eye seat
Part of what gives Ellis her perspicacity, she believes, is her long career in the spa industry. She began her journey in the 70s as a fi tness instructor at California’s Golden Door des- tination spa, where she quickly progressed into management. Aſt er leaving, she worked as a consultant and got an MBA from the University of California Los Angeles, before working as an assistant to two consecutive International Spa Association presidents. T en, in 1995, she was recruited by Donald Trump to open and manage his fi rst spa at T e Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. By that time, she was happily married
to Pete Ellis – now SpaFinder’s chair and CEO – who she had met at the Golden Door (she was staff , he was a guest). In 1995, Pete
launched the pioneering online car sales and marketing company Autobytel and when he took it public in 1999, the couple started investing in a number of diff erent companies
– including a New York-based travel agency and magazine publisher called SpaFinder. Today, SpaFinder is no longer a travel
agency, although it works with over 25,000 travel agents. Instead, it promotes spa and wellness experiences direct to the con- sumer through its website, vertical search technology, reservation system and giſt ing programme. More than 25,000 wellness-fo- cused consumers visit spafi
nder.com each day, and over the last few years, the company has also launched sister sites in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada and Japan. It’s this global perspective, believes Ellis, that is her other great advantage when compiling the annual trends report. “We have a sort of bird’s eye seat here at SpaFinder,” she says. In fact, it was a vision of creating greater
R E S E A R C H
unity in the global industry that motivated Susie and Pete – along with a small group of leading spa professionals – to launch the Global Spa Summit (now the Global Spa & Wellness Summit) in New York City six years ago. Although many of the found- ing members are still on the board, it’s Ellis who’s been the driving force behind the initiative and annual conference.
SpaFinder 2012
SPA TREND REPORT Top 10 Global Spa Trends Forecast
Shining a light
Although much of Ellis’s time is taken up by the GSWS, she’s still the face of SpaFinder and remains very involved
Over the past decade Ellis has frequently been on target in predicting trends such as lifestyle real estate (far left) in her annual Spa Trend Report (inset)
52 Read Spa Business online
spabusiness.com / digital SPA BUSINESS 2 2012 ©Cybertrek 2012
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