Letters
How can we get spas to sign up to benchmarking?
Anne McCall Wilson, owner, McCall & Wilson
The profi t and loss allocation in hotel spas will always raise an abundance of opinion, as highlighted in the recent article in Spa Business (see SB13/4 p42), but I continue to be perplexed at the lack of participation in benchmarking programmes – something which can have an even bigger impact on spa balance sheets. At the fi rst Global Spa & Wellness Summit
in 2007, a benchmarking session was stand- ing room only, which prompted Smith Travel Research (STR) to set up a standard report- ing system for spas (see SB08/2 p21). After several years, participation still remains very low. Everyone agrees it’s needed, but how do we get businesses to actually participate? Maybe we need owners, lenders and asset companies to ask that question. STR collects stats on spa revenue,
utilisation and space. We can lament unfair cost allocations but this is often just a left pocket/right pocket fi nancial transfer or budget discussion and doesn’t put the focus on what drives real value. We need to focus on building the spa top line. This means not only building revenue management skill sets and tools for our leaders, but also developing a revenue culture in our businesses.
KATIE BARNES, MANAGING EDITOR, SPA BUSINESS
Do you have a strong opinion, or disagree with somebody else’s point of view on topics related to the spa industry? If so, Spa Business would love to hear from you. Email your letters, thoughts and suggestions to
theteam@spabusiness.com
Benchmarking provides valuable data on spa customers, usage, revenue and space Focusing on the top line forces critical
thinking about the customer. Knowing who the customer is drives everything – space, design and programming. A spa in an urban business hotel with a 65 per cent male audience might be completely dif- ferent to another urban hotel positioning itself as a neighbourhood meeting place. I wish more projects developed a strategy in the concept phase and determined the
main role of the spa: whether to increase asset value, enhance positioning, drive weekend room nights, be a key profi t centre, or simply provide an amenity. We would have many more profi table projects if we identifi ed the customer and the right revenue plan and space allocation at an early stage. Interestingly, these are almost the exact statistics that the STR benchmarking system collects.
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14 Read Spa Business online
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Jobs, news and training
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Spa Business 2 2014 ©Cybertrek 2014
SHUTTERSTOCK/GOODLUZ
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