HOTEL BUSINESS REVIEW
JULY FOCUS: Hotel Spa

Treading Lightly into New Spa Territory

The Challenges Related to Bringing Spa to New Destinations

By Kimberly Setzermann Co-Founder, Pure Strategic Solutions | June 2013

As a consultant in the hospitality industry, I've seen that it's risky to assume that something that works well in one culture or place is going to work the same way somewhere else. In March 2011, my partner and I became General Management of a very special 14-room, 10-acre property in Tanzania with the instruction from the owners to construct additional rooms, renovate the existing facilities, add a spa, and upgrade all reservation, accounts, and store systems. Despite our Africa-less experience, we trusted that our problem-solving skills and cultural sensitivity would carry us through any unforeseen challenges.

My first discovery was that this is a community that has seen many of its youth coerced into the sex trade. So how to convince them that a young woman alone in a closed room touching a mostly naked, horizontal man could be considered therapeutic medically oriented massage?

This was my starting point for introducing spa therapy to a village in Tanzania. The first solution that came to mind was simply to bring in trained massage therapists from somewhere else. But that wasn't going to resolve the fundamental issue, which remained how the public perceived the masseuse, and the label the outside therapist would be given.

What appealed most strongly to me was the fact that a local spa therapist could make significant money. The average Tanzanian earns less than $2 per day, and a successful body worker could become highly sought-after. Tourism in Tanzania continues to steadily grow at approximately 7% per annum, making it the second-highest (48.7%) contributor to GDP after agriculture (51.2%). Depending on pay scale, a spa therapist could earn as much as three times the salary of a basic housekeeper in a respected hotel during high season, while working fewer hours per week.

Little did I imagine, however, how humbling and how rewarding it was going to be to attempt to introduce spa services to a very small group of Tanzanians.

However, accreditation has not kept pace with the rapid increase in tourism. Often no accreditation is required to simply declare oneself a spa therapist. While this will probably change in the near future, as educational training institutes realize the financial value of having a necessary certification imposed by the government, persons presenting themselves as spa therapists show a vast range of ability and experience.

As I searched for candidates already labeling themselves as "massage therapists", I underwent "massages" that began without explanation on the service to be performed, and included several movements that tickled, made me feel awkward, and were annoying, at best. My favorite example of a massage from an "experienced therapist" was the session in which her phone rang loudly at least 5 times -and she actually answered twice, continuing the massage while carrying on a jubilant, juicy sounding conversation that I wished I could understand.

Therefore, as the leading luxury chain hotels continue to create amazing spa concepts to complement their beautiful properties throughout the untouched splendor of Africa, I suspect that they will be faced with serious challenges in finding suitable local spa therapists, if they wish to avoid the complications of hiring from abroad. But at the same time, this is a moment laced with great opportunity, should they decide to hire and - more importantly -- train the most motivated local applicants.

In the end, this was the route I chose, and it has paid off in the motivation and dedication of the young women who took this risky but powerful chance to create a new career for themselves which they had never imagined.

After giving up on the idea of finding an already trained local therapist, I decided to embark on a small experiment and search for potential students within housekeeping staff, the group of employees with perhaps the most to gain from a new career.

I began by approaching them and explaining the essential purpose of spa therapy. I described the type of afflictions a client might visit a therapist for such as pain in the muscles, headaches, and stress, linking their experience of kneading their mother's feet after a long day at work or rubbing their grandmother's shoulders. I thus laid the ground work of convincing the staff that this therapy was truly healing, and not sexual. I then outlined the basic techniques used in spa therapy. We discussed the medical terminology and looked at diagrams of the body.

Not long thereafter, two women came to my office interested in learning more. At this point, in order to protect these two women from possible slurs and misunderstanding, it became imperative that I give the rest of the staff, their families, and the surrounding community the chance to understand this new career path and its potential benefits.

After a brief search, I was extremely fortunate to find a woman to be my partner, who had the passion and ability to help educate: a woman trained at the accredited Alison Caroline Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, with many years of professional experience throughout East Africa as a spa therapist. Another critical skill that she provided was the capacity to speak the difficult medical terminology in Kiswahili.

On a sunny afternoon in August 2011, my friend and I held an afternoon mandatory course for all staff of the hotel to discuss, demonstrate, and answer questions about spa therapy-particularly massage. As the chosen students stood cautiously in front of the group in their crisp soft green hospital scrub-like uniforms, the rest of the staff stood as far back as they could from the open massage room, chuckling and joking with each other. We could feel their apprehension and resistance to this unusual new activity.

My friend began an explanation in Kiswahili, which put them slightly more at ease, then invited anyone who was willing to lie on the table and receive a massage from her. To our surprise, a male waiter in the group raised his hand with trepidation and stepped forward, explaining that he had chronic pain in his legs from standing. After being instructed to undress to his underwear and lie face-down on the table under the top sheet provided, the door was closed, allowing for his privacy.

When he was situated on the table, we opened the door and proceeded to spend the next two hours demonstrating the basic techniques of massage on the waiter, utilizing strict draping procedures with the standard bed sheets. As the session continued, the chattering faded, and by the end not a single chuckle was heard. As the door to the spa room closed again to allow the volunteer to dress, I noticed that the distance separating the group from the door had drastically decreased. After he rejoined the group, flexing his feet, pointing his toes, and gushing to his friends about how much better his legs felt, everyone joined in a lively game of question and answer that really pushed at their cultural boundaries.

The questions increased in confidence, till finally someone asked what happens if the client misinterprets the service to be sexual. "Perfect," I thought -- "we have reached the real discussion for the day". Without embarrassment, we explained simply and clearly that the therapist must immediately discontinue the massage, ask the client to dress and exit the room, and tell him/her that the General Manager will meet him/her outside. The service will still be charged and the therapist will still earn her full percentage of the fee.

After the session, a woman who worked as a baker asked to join the training. We accepted her immediately after having watched her knead the bread dough with exceptional strength and focus.

The training program, which my friend conducted, took two months, and covered complete Anatomy & Physiology education. The examination, which required identifying more than 95 of the most critical bones and muscles for massage, required a score of 80% correct answers before the student could pass to the next step. The first student passed on her second try, her housekeeping colleague on her fourth try, and despite her strong fingers, the baker failed the program after her unsuccessful second attempt at the first exam.

Next began intensive courses in technique, with a strict set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) more than three pages long to follow for each of the treatments: basic massage, body scrub, body mask, manicure, and pedicure.

After three months of classes held for four hours each day outside of the ladies' regular housekeeping shifts, another exam was required on the SOPs and how to communicate with the client, which both candidates passed on their second attempt. Finally, we began a student clinic, in which the women were required to give a certain number of each treatments for a reduced price to well informed members of the hospitality community who understood that the ladies were still in training.

It was during this time that the body scrub, body mask, manicure, and pedicure were removed from the menu due to complaints on the abnormal length of time the girls needed to finish the service and the difficulties in communication they had with the clients during the transitions between multiple treatments. Only the basic massage remained, and is now offered regularly at the hotel with an average of six massages booked per week during high season.

As we had anticipated, we have found that travelers of this hotel departing or arriving from a safari or a Kilimanjaro climb demand essentially only one service: a well-executed basic massage, during which the therapist listens to specific concerns and is able to adapt the treatment to meet the request. If language is a barrier for communication between therapist and client, diagrams of the body are used to indicate where the pain is, with a number scale for the intensity. For this property, this has been enough to satisfy the clientele and keep the two therapists busy between their full-time job of housekeeping and their near daily routine of treating massage clients.

As we had imagined, the financial benefit to the therapists has been immediate, and has been substantial enough to permit both women to expand their families. Each has taken off three fully paid months in the last year for maternity leave, and both have returned with increased motivation to return to massage therapy.

While limiting the offer to only basic massage will not satisfy the desire for spa services in every hotel in Tanzania, we have established a program that has proven successful for the therapists as well as in the eyes of the community. With additional investment in advanced training and education, our approach can be expanded considerably to include even the most complicated services. However, this will require more extensive training including high level English classes with candidates that are able to focus exclusively on spa services.

Travel to Africa offers an abundance of pleasures to delight the senses through the wildlife, vegetation, and vibrant culture. Therefore, it is a natural pairing for spa to be included in the packages available with the same prevalence found around the world. The challenge will be in the proper training of the therapists and education of the surrounding communities to understand the importance and benefits of these services.

Based on our experience, it seems clear that, if developed with sensitivity and strict professional expertise, spa will almost certainly have the potential to act as a small but significant catalyst for positive change in the local community, keeping step with the growth of the global hospitality industry.

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In the event that you have chosen to have your membership automatically rebilled, unless and until you notify HotelExecutive that you wish to cancel or terminate your membership to HotelExecutive, you hereby agree and authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to automatically renew your membership to HotelExecutive on a continuing basis and to charge your credit card (or other payment means you have selected) to pay for the ongoing cost of your membership. You hereby further authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card (or other approved payment means you have selected) for any and all purchases of products, services and entertainment provided to in, at, through or in association with HotelExecutive.

13. PRIVACY POLICY

The following is the Privacy Policy for HotelExecutive

We can be reached via telephone, email, or online at our contact page. When you visit our site we do not log any information regarding your domain or email address. Information Sharing: We do not share user information with any third parties other than via press release distribution as described below.

Hotel Newswire is a newswire service that distributes press releases on behalf of our users. If you decide to submit a press release for distribution through our system we will transmit your entire press release including any personal information therein contained to our media contacts and online distribution points including search engines. This is the only redistribution of your information that we engage in. Your submission of press releases through our system indicates consent with this policy. The information we collect during your registration process is used to notify users about updates to our service and inform users of any special events hosted by Hotel Newswire. This information is not shared with other organizations for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Cookies: Our system requires the use of cookies to enable the user to log back into our website to access information from the newswire, without having to log in each time using the required username and password.

If you do not want to receive email from us in the future, please let us know by following instructions included in our communication with you. Users who supply us with telephone numbers online may receive telephone contact from us regarding their account, or informing them of new products and services available on the HotelExecutive website. If you do not wish to receive such telephone calls, please edit your account and remove your phone number from your account profile. This can be done from your user account menu.

Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have any relationship with any ad server companies. From time to time, we may use customer information for new uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at any time, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically.

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information (including proprietary information) that we maintain about them. Users can access this information by logging in to their account.

Security: We always use industry-standard encryption technologies while transferring and receiving user data exchanged with our site. We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you on our site. We do not store credit card information in our systems.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us.

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HOTEL BUSINESS REVIEW
JULY FOCUS: Hotel Spa