MOVERS & SHAKERS Tony de Leede OWNER AND FOUNDER, GWINGANNA LIFESTYLE RETREAT AND SPA, AUSTRALIA
A fi tness industry pioneer, Tony de Leede has run successful health club chains in the US (23 Australia Body Works) and Australia (90 Fitness Firsts). Today, however, his main focus is the 500-acre Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat and Spa, Queensland – a site he bought eight years ago with a view to transforming the country’s spa market.
How did you fi rst get into the spa business? T e seed was fi rst planted aſt er my father died 40 years ago and my mother gave up smok- ing, drinking, eating bad food and started exercising regularly. She was one of the fi rst people in Australia to embrace the Pritikin diet [see Spa Business 09/3 p50] and started to do t’ai chi (which back then most people thought was a new dish on a Chinese menu!). She also started going to ‘fat farms’, which
have evolved into the lifestyle/health retreats that we know today. As I watched my mother transform her
life, I determined that when I got to around her age, I would have my own retreat: a place where I could live when I slowed down from whatever else I was doing. T at dream became a reality when I bought the property about eight years ago. I fi nally opened the Gwin- ganna Lifestyle Retreat and Spa in March 2006 [see sb07/3 p76].
What have been your biggest achievements over the last 12 months? We not only won the Crystal Award for Favourite Spa in Australia from SpaFinder Inc for the third time, but we also received the Spa Retreat of the Year award at the AsiaSpa Awards in November 2010. T is is a very sig- nifi cant award, as the other nominees were highly regarded spas in Asia.
What makes your company stand out? T e programmes, the food and the people. T e biggest accolades we get are for our genuinely caring staff , most of whom have been with us since the beginning. T ey love to work here and get tremendous joy and satisfaction in see- ing people join one of our programmes – on detox, wellbeing, energy, relaxation, nutrition and women’s health – and leave as totally dif- ferent people aſt er fi ve to seven days. While we spent au$30m (us$29.4m, €22.2m, £18.6m) on developing the facilities and structures, the people create the greatest impact.
Gwinganna off ers detox, wellbeing, energy and relaxation programmes and the aim is for people to leave with a new lease of life
50 spa business handbook 2011
www.spahandbook.com
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