Ms. Lowman

Spas, Health & Fitness

The Hotel Spa: High Value Marketing

By Tyra Lowman, Senior Director of Spas – Full Service and Luxury Brands, Hilton Worldwide

In tough economic times, businesses including hotel and resort spas have a tendency to slash marketing budgets. While an ailing economy may seem like nothing but a negative, it also creates an even greater opportunity for savvy businesses to fine tune marketing concepts and execute plans that are relevant for right now, accelerate company growth and help surpass the competition. By investing marketing dollars when others are holding back and focusing on a campaign’s quality instead of quantity, you will be better poised to achieve revenue and profit goals while also increasing brand awareness on industry and consumer levels.

Following are six guidelines I used while creating and developing eforea: spa at Hilton, the first global spa concept from Hilton Hotels & Resorts, in the thick of the recent economic downturn. With eforea launching successfully in October 2010 and currently rolling out at Hilton Hotels & Resorts properties in all corners of the world, here are my top tips for maximize the marketing value of hotel and resort spas no matter the geographic location or economic state.

Focus on Your Best Guests

We all know it costs twice as much to attract new clients than to keep existing ones and that the top 10% of your clients usually represent more than 75% of business. Focus on creating marketing strategies and promotions that encourage guests to spend more, and more often during their spa visits.

Make your top clients feel special. When introducing a new product or service to your spa treatment menu, have a special event and invite the top 10% of your client list to experience the treatment or products. Partner with local vendors to create memorable events such as invitation only trunk/fashion shows and charity events. Create a special event calendar just for them.

Offer personal shopping services with complimentary gift wrapping during the holidays and invite best clients to come in with their holiday shopping list for advice on spa gift giving. Make sure special invitations to top clients also include an offer to bring a friend, as your best client’s friends can also become your best new clients. Take event photos and post them on your website and social media pages to recognize special guests.

Know your best clients. Find out who they are, what makes them tick and most importantly why they make spa purchases and what deters them from doing so. You can gather this information formally in the form of a survey or questionnaire or informally through targeted conversations and follow-up phone calls.

Learn your best client’s interests outside the spa. This will better inform your marketing and advertising strategy. For example, if you know a large percentage of your best guests are members of a specific charity or club, you have just figured out where to spend your marketing dollars to attract new clients just like them.

Acknowledge your best guests. You can do this through targeted loyalty programs or by simply saying “thank you” and meaning it. Give your best guests a reason to celebrate with a complimentary spa treatment or product.

Create Staycations & In-City Spa Escapes

For hotels and resorts with city locations, market the spa as an in-city getaway. If your property is in a vacation spot, make your message about how the spa is a transformative destination for community residents. Engaging your local and drive market guests is key, as they can carry your spa business through tough economic times as people travel less for business and leisure.

Create specialty “staycation” packages that focus on a shorter stays that tie in food and beverage, room night promotions, local attraction discounts and spa packages. Create targeted promotions for bridal parties, romantic weekend getaways, girlfriend getaways, teen parties and “just because you deserve it.”

Create a “Spa at Home & at Work” class schedule. You can offer complimentary classes that teach couples massage techniques, de-stress at your desk tips, spa cuisine cooking and how to give your self an “at home” facial. Be sure to offer a discount if clients book a service or purchase a product during the class.

Make the spa experience fun and memorable, and don’t forget to give staycation guests an unexpected memento to remember their stay.

Bow to Business Travelers and Groups

Keep an eye on business travelers, especially since more travelers are blending business trips with extended leisure stays and expect leisure offerings including memorable on-property spa experiences. In developing the eforea spa concept for Hilton Hotels & Resorts, it was paramount for me to develop a spa concept and corresponding marketing strategy that spoke to the needs and preferences of the business traveler as much as those of the classic leisure traveler.

Focus business traveler promotions around the hotel or resort’s leisure offerings including the spa. Maybe you introduce a “Business Suite to Swim” promotion or create a spa “happy hour” with discounted spa services from 5-7 pm that is geared toward business travelers. Offer a value-add promotion that encourages business guests to add spa services and amenities during their stay.

Find interesting ways to market to the meetings and groups audience. Ideas including offering “spa breaks” in the meeting format, giving chilled towels and serving spa cuisine, providing 15-minute treatments during breakout times and extending discounts to guests who book full spa treatments during breaks between meetings at the hotel or resort. Plan a meeting or group function to take place in the hotel spa as an alternative to the typical group activities.

Market your spa as a corporate wellness solution. Since business travelers need ways to de-stress and relax, market to corporate travel divisions and encourage them to include your spa services in travel programs as a way to increase employee productivity while reducing stress-related injury and illness. A corporate wellness solution will also elevate a respective company as an employee-focused place to work.

Craft Compelling Reasons to Buy

Continue to offer new and innovative spa services, programs and perks that hotel guests can’t resist. Emphasize the quality, integrity and variety of your treatments and highlight the superior education of your spa professionals.

Spa-goers are savvier than ever before, so enhance your spa’s credibility by sharing insight about interesting elements including special ingredients, high-quality products, revolutionary treatments, holistic experiences and innovative technologies.

Think big and dream up fun programs and services that will drive the hotel or resort’s captive audience into the spa. Position spa services as a necessary part of the on-property experience – whether it is martinis and manicures at the bar, sun burn rescue treatments at the pool or effortless in-room treatment experiences.

Spend Time & Resources Wisely

Reduce dollars spent on interruption marketing and instead focus on relationship-based opportunities including loyalty, email and online social community marketing that allow you to reinvent how the spa’s story is told and shared.

The spa business is, and will always be, a word of mouth business – this could be an excellent marketing asset, or a business killer. Invest in knowing what people say about your spa by reading relevant blogs, social media sites and advisor reports. This also allows you to respond appropriately and in a timely manner to any client and traveler complaints.

Social media engagement is inexpensive and very effective. Allocate time to develop and maintain social media pages that engage your audience with on-point messaging, insider news, relevant lifestyle topics and wonderful promotions that have a call to action.

There is a reason that the “refer a friend” program has been around forever…because it works! Remember to ask for new business and reward the referring client and the new guest appropriately.

Invest in your retail program. While spa guests who purchase retail items are 30% more likely to return, it is typical in a hotel spa environment that retail to service ratios are lower than the 25% spa industry average. With manageable retail commissions, retail can be a spa’s largest window of profit. Make it easy for guests to purchase by offering complimentary shipping on retail products over three ounces.

Leverage the Power of PR

Hotel spa marketing alone is not nearly as effective as campaigns that bring public relations and social media programs into the mix. Public relations, which serves to increase awareness for and interest in behalf of a company via media-based third party endorsements, is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing.

In today’s sophisticated information age, media coverage in traditional and innovative mediums along with Web- and phone-based social media buzz are delivering powerful, far-reaching value for products and businesses at minimal cost.

This holds true for hotel and resort spas.

In collaboration with the Hilton Worldwide Global Spa Operations team, Tyra Lowman develops spa-related initiatives and products that enhance the guest experience at all full-service and luxury hotel brands. In October 2010, Ms. Lowman led the successful launch of eforea: spa at Hilton as the Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand’s first global spa concept in history. The eforea concept has received more than 147,000,000 media impressions to-date and features a global pipeline of more than 100 spas in development at Hilton Hotels & Resorts properties around the world. As Senior Director Global Spas - Full Service and Luxury Brands, Ms. Lowman shapes the Hilton Worldwide standards for spa operations, service and treatment, design and construction and quality measurements. Ms. Lowman can be contacted at 703-883-5222 or tyra.lowman@hilton.com Extended Bio...

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