Spas Check in to Local Hotels as Health and Well-Being Are on the Rise
The popularity of spas is increasing--people are more concerned with health and well-being.
Christopher Boyd, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Travelers who once expected little more than attentive concierges and comfortable beds are now demanding much more from their hotels.
Today, they want to know whether they can end the day with an Asian massage or a martini pedicure.
Health spas are no longer only exotic destinations with bubbling mineral springs. Spas with luxurious baths, tearooms and treatment rooms are opening across the country, taking the lodging industry into the personal-pampering business.
"Spas are here to stay," said Meg Prendergast, senior vice president with Gettys, a Chicago hotel-design company. "They are definitely a requirement for luxury hotels. If you are in the luxury market, you realize that. Guests want spas in their hotels, even if they don't use them."
These aren't the architectural afterthoughts that began appearing in hotels 20 years ago. Spas now fill tens of thousands of square feet with scores of fitness rooms and big staffs of trainers, clinicians and nutrition advisers.
Spa staffs offer fitness and wellness classes that include workouts followed by aromatherapy sessions and tips about skin care and healthy eating. One of the nation's largest spas at Orlando's Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes resort offers dozens of programs, 145 employees and a big menu of prices and options.
"We have all the holistic treatments you would expect and much more," said Suzanne Holbrook, the spa's executive director. "There's teeth-whitening, Vichy water treatment, facials and massages. We are rolling out a sleep-treatment program soon. Do you realize how many people are sleep-deprived?"
The Ritz-Carlton's treatment rooms fill two floors and appeal to many preferences. One massage room has what looks like a small set of parallel bars about five feet above the table. Holbrook explained that the masseuse holds on to the bars while using her feet to work on the client's back.
Other rooms are designed for hydrotherapy and aroma treatments.
All this doesn't come cheap. A Swedish massage that uses warm cinnamon apple pie oil costs $120. An East Indian lime scalp- and body-massage treatment for men that includes a "macho, macho pedicure" goes for $320.
