months and involves an introductory week of face-to-face teaching, followed by online learning and coursework relating to the stu- dent’s own business, before a final week of face-to-face. Up to 15 of Hilton’s top thera- pists are selected for each intake. Main says:
“We have a lot of hotel development coming up and we’re going to need so many new spa managers, it’s critical we have an educational solution we’re happy with. “[But] it’s not our aim to bond people to
us at the end of the course. We believe that just giving people this opportunity will be enough to motivate them to stay with us.” It’s not only employers who could bene-
fit from investing in management training, however. Elaine Fenard, managing partner of consultants Spa Strategy, believes suppli- ers should also get in on the act. “If a spa director doesn’t understand yield and mar- gins, that’s not good for selling product, so it would benefit them, too,” she says. Indeed, Spa Strategy was acquired by Aromather- apy Associates in June for this very purpose and has it as just introduced its business and executive coaching services to help improve the operational and financial performance of spas (see p18). Meanwhile, ESPA Interna- tional has been offering its Spa Management
SPA BUSINESS 3 2012 ©Cybertrek 2012
Essentials and Spa Management Advanced training for five years. Te ESPA courses, which cover yield management, understand- ing key performance indicators and budget writing, start with a three to five days intense training followed by continuing professional development in the workplace.
PARTNERS IN SUCCESS
In some regions, especially those where spa and wellness tourism is burgeoning, even governments appear to be recognising the need for greater investment in spa man- agement education – from the EC-funded ILIS project to government partnerships with Sudre’s IHSA in Morocco and Nicara- gua. “We ran about a dozen spa management training seminars in Morocco last year, and we’re currently in negotiations with the Min- istry of Tourism and the Ministry of Adult Education to incorporate the International Hotel Spa Academy there in a formal sense, with a permanent base,” says Sudre. “Te King of Morocco wants to attract 20
million tourists over the next decade, which is around double the number they have now, and the only way they’re going to do that is to make Morocco a wellness destination… so all the major hotel chains in the country
Many operators aren’t willing to pay or even subsidise staff training, but exceptions include global corporations like Banyan Tree (above), Hyatt and Hilton
are desperate to find qualified spa managers, and there just aren’t enough.” Te company is also in talks with the Ministry of Tourism in Nicaragua about integrating IHSA into a hotel school in Managua, to support the wellness tourism strategy there. As the global spa industry continues to
grow, then, so too does the demand for cred- ible spa management training. But while an increasing number of education providers, industry players and even governments are responding to this need, their efforts are still largely subjective and fragmented. If the recent study of spa management training by SRI International, conducted on behalf of the Global Spa &Wellness Summit (see p54), can provide greater insight into the issues involved and help to engender unity among these disparate factions, who knows what could be achieved? l In part three: we will investigate how much
scope there is to develop global standards for spa management training
Read Spa Business online
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