By Guest Contributer: Mia A. Mackman | President & Owner, Mackman ES and Founder & President | Arizona Spa Association
“The mission of most [professional associations] is to unite local industry, build new relationships, and share information that supports success, continued education and overall industry growth.”
With accelerating growth across the spa-and-wellness market, new post-COVID protocols have ascended throughout hospitality. These include a renewed focus on development thresholds, facility concerns, consumer products and multilateral demand factors.
The spa-and-wellness industry is still a new and developing market. Under less pressure pre-COVID, these segments were accelerating and improving with robust, record growth year-over-year since 2009.
Reflecting back to 2009, a variety of operational choices that were made impacted the whole of the spa-and-wellness trajectory over the last decade. Many of these choices were beneficial. However, some of these choices were detrimental to the operational growth and program agility of the industry-at-large. Despite a decade of strong growth, there were hurdles in deploying an advanced concentration on wellbeing and service diversity. This has been an ongoing, slow curve for many spas, properties, and businesses across the market.
While facing the 2009 downturn, many veteran spa directors, and senior operator roles were dissolved, or reduced for budget and payroll revisions. This further led to slow pivots in a market growing at an ever-vibrant rate. Meanwhile, this frequently resulted in a lack of deliberate growth, dynasticism and leadership proficiencies. While reducing costs is a primary goal of many businesses, some of these moves created less gradation in the field of expertise. This led to slower innovations in education, and stagnated performance strategies in select market segments.
Over the last ten years, the pace of the industry has ignited new factors to contend with such as, information accessibility challenges. Alongside, staffing hurdles and attention to nuance. Many of those in leadership roles found themselves insulated from new information lacking the time to explore new vendors and educational options. This also made discovering the increasing array of high-performing, wellness-programs a slow-moving effort.
The spa-and-wellness industry is still a new and developing market. Under less pressure pre-COVID, these segments were accelerating and improving with robust, record growth year-over-year since 2009.
Reflecting back to 2009, a variety of operational choices that were made impacted the whole of the spa-and-wellness trajectory over the last decade. Many of these choices were beneficial. However, some of these choices were detrimental to the operational growth and program agility of the industry-at-large. Despite a decade of strong growth, there were hurdles in deploying an advanced concentration on wellbeing and service diversity. This has been an ongoing, slow curve for many spas, properties, and businesses across the market.
While facing the 2009 downturn, many veteran spa directors, and senior operator roles were dissolved, or reduced for budget and payroll revisions. This further led to slow pivots in a market growing at an ever-vibrant rate. Meanwhile, this frequently resulted in a lack of deliberate growth, dynasticism and leadership proficiencies. While reducing costs is a primary goal of many businesses, some of these moves created less gradation in the field of expertise. This led to slower innovations in education, and stagnated performance strategies in select market segments.
Over the last ten years, the pace of the industry has ignited new factors to contend with such as, information accessibility challenges. Alongside, staffing hurdles and attention to nuance. Many of those in leadership roles found themselves insulated from new information lacking the time to explore new vendors and educational options. This also made discovering the increasing array of high-performing, wellness-programs a slow-moving effort.
Arizona Spa and Wellness
In 2009, I experienced a serious personal health crisis. Through this experience, I learned profound and valuable information that led me to holistically heal the cellular impact of my condition. The World Research Foundation, based in Sedona, was a keystone to helping me through this process of healing. In an effort to share these alternative healing modalities with the spa industry, I started the Sedona Spa Association in 2010.
This expanded and grew to become the Arizona Spa & Wellness Association in 2012. The premise of forming this group has always been to share wellness-and-health related propositions, with spa operators to accelerate the integration and progress of healing-and-health through spa services, and the hospitality market.
In May 2013, the Arizona Spa & Wellness Association held its first conference format event at Miraval in Tucson. This event was titled “The Spirit, Spa and Science of Wellbeing.” This event was created to relay the urgent advent of the intersection between integrative-wellness and new models for spa services. Since 2013, these propositions have dramatically come to the fore of the market. This event enabled Arizona’s membership to collectively discuss and discover emergent wellness program attributes in strategic and important ways.
Emerging Associations and Alliances
To serve the new growth and demands of the market, new national and global spa industry event circuits have emerged with rapid speed. Meanwhile, the spa-and-wellness market has seen the rise and fall of many great industry associations. Subsequently, as COVID has significantly challenged in-person meetings and events, across all industries, the recent call for local, and regional associations continues to be loud and wide.
Forming new relationships and participating in industry collaborations, conferences and groups have become cornerstones to building strong frameworks to conducting business. This is true for most all industries, and especially true for industries of caregivers, and healers. COVID has provoked unprecedented travel restrictions, and disrupted meeting, group and conference schedules, everywhere. This has put a spotlight on many things, including the importance of developing local, resilient, interpersonal and professional relationships. While digital and remote meetings have their useful benefits, these modes of interactions cannot fully replace the appetite for in-person meetings.
Meanwhile, the need for personal and professional support has quickened in tandem with an urgency to cope with operational challenges, critical to moving forward amongst vast uncertainties. The new chapter we face as an industry, introduces a crucial time to revive and reinvent local and regionally focused associations and groups. The Las Vegas Spa Association and Florida Spa Association have played important roles of advancing the value, context and relevancy of regional associations. Thus, new regional groups have formed in recent years including the Southeast Spa and Wellness Association, and the Rocky Mountain Spa & Wellness Association.
Greater Good and Associations
Professional Associations are founded for various reasons and developed with a multitude of goals in mind. These have distinct demographic business cultures and unique ways of engaging their members. Some of the most common shared goals are simple. The mission of most is to unite local industry, build new relationships, and share information that supports success, continued education and overall industry growth.
While larger global and national associations offer a tremendous scope of membership benefits, they are unable to zoom-in on various and important local demographic features. The International Spa Association (ISPA) and the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) are long-standing industry platforms. They have been excellent resources throughout the pandemic. They have created and introduced comprehensive COVID reopening guidelines, shared wider market data, and offered valuable protocols. These larger groups have also provided helpful tools and best practices related to questions and challenges entwined in reopening spa facilities, future market growth and client management.
Meanwhile, regional associations are perfectly suited to discuss today’s varying COVID and local challenges. These groups are ideal to facilitate ongoing support networks with local, long-view relationship building, while creating more intimate forums to address specific issues impacting select markets and areas. As evidenced throughout the pandemic, each country, state, city, and county have experienced a wide range of operational challenges and unique guidelines. Furthermore, there continues to be stark operational and management contrasts in various places around the U.S. and the world.
Education and Growth
It takes considerable time and energy to investigate emerging modalities, new product options and effective operating and marketing tools. By working with partners and vendors, regional associations are able to harness and disseminate product knowledge, industry information and partnership opportunities in unique and relevant ways.
Vendor relationships have been the lifeline for many associations. Being that the marketplace continues to debut new products, brands, and supplier options, there is a lot to keep up with. In addition to product awareness, industry education, CEU attainment and modality certifications are constantly changing. Having access to advanced training techniques, energy and healing modalities, acupuncture, and other forms of wellness services, improves the impact of the business. Moreover, these attributes elevate and improve the wherewithal and skills of healers and providers throughout the process.
Ultimately, the responsibility and task of being an industry association, far exceeds solely facilitating vendor relationships and certifications. There are social-demographic, technical and incremental conversations that warrant depth and attention. The ripples of COVID include vast and complex personal and professional challenges. These conditions have also heightened individual health concerns, and a focus on self-awareness. Atop rising mental health issues, and an extensive search for trust, purpose and meaning; having a local sense of community-industry can be a treasured resource.
Performance Metrics and Benchmarks
The hospitality sector and spa-and-wellness market are in the midst of a vital transition. Many businesses and properties are managing workforce shortages, amid ongoing and various operational restrictions and hesitations. This is an important time to collaborate with partners and peers, create mentorship initiatives and prepare for what lies ahead. Whereas leisure and lifestyle markets continue to rapidly overlap and expand, the need to refine performance metrics with functional agility are urgent and essential.
The level of diverse demand we can expect in the years to come is significant. This will require new tactical solutions and preeminent industry benchmarks on a widescale. This growth will also merit improved routes to technical training, and the creation of stronger mentorship models. Mentoring is a critical piece to inspire and support, new and rising talent in the market. Associations can help to build bridges between these key intersections, to discuss performance, reveal shared challenges and facilitate new solutions.
It is no surprise there is a rising number of new spa-and-wellness industry associations around the world. These groups provide helpful, and specific resources for distinct markets worldwide. These platforms bring people together for localized, social, professional and tactical support. Whereas the industry continues to swell with growth and change, the significance of regional associations continues to evolve and be progressively valuable.
Final Thoughts
Associations are key leadership groups within the spa, wellness and hospitality industry. As such, there is a responsibility to not only keep our eye on what lays ahead, but to also discover and solve what may be holding us back. By exploring these challenges, we can be better positioned as we embark on accumulative solutions in our respective markets going forward.
Industry associations have the potential to unite and inspire people in extraordinary ways. This trickles down to inspiring teams, clients, and business cultures. The more we can share and learn as professionals and providers, the better prepared we are to help people live better lives. With the intent to deliver value, while uplifting and caring for others, participating in regional associations can be core to supporting intricate success. This creates a potent pathway to improving the future of our industry, society and communities.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mia A. Mackman has more than 25 years of beauty, spa, and wellness industry experience. Ms. Mackman is the principal and founder of Mackman|ES, a comprehensive, future-ready wellness and spa consultancy and HVS Managing Director, Spa and Wellness Consulting division. She specializes in market foresight, strategy, asset repositioning, financial projections, and facility development. In partnership with HVS, Ms. Mackman provides the spa-and-wellness consulting services for HVS’s global client network, including market and feasibility studies, valuation narratives, and data analysis. Ms. Mackman works with global investment firms, hotel and mixed-use property developers, and hospitality organizations. She contributes as an industry expert to global think-tanks, international business reports, and improving global industry standards. Ms. Mackman is also Founder & President of the Arizona Spa & Wellness Association. Based in Sedona, Arizona, Ms. Mackman is recognized for her industry knowledge and her propensity to foresee imperative hospitality market shifts. This supports her broad client base to effectively navigate, adapt, and excel in a fast-changing market.