SPORTS-FOCUSED THERAPIES

Re:SPA, Reebok Sports
Club London, UK

Spa manager: Sally Fairbanks
Percentage of male clients: 35–40 per cent
Product houses: Aromatherapy Associates’ The Refinery collection, Murad, Guinot, OPL

What are the benefits of having male clients? Attracting more male spa-goers has helped increase our turnover year on year.

What do male spa-goers want?
The Reebok spa is located within a health/sports club and, in the first instance, many of our male clients visit the spa for services such as physiotherapy. Only then do they make appointments for other treatments. They like treatments that are more manual as opposed to electrical, and deep tissue massage as opposed to lighter massage movements.

How is the spa promoted in the fitness area? The cross-promotion information is sports-orientated, targeted and sometimes medically-orientated – sports massage for athletes, for example. Much of what’s on offer at the spa either enhances or assists the healing process. Also, we ensure the fitness team all understand and are aware of what’s on offer within the spa.

SPA SAMPLING

eforea spa, Hilton, Pattaya, Thailand

Spa manager: Tara Hanrahan
Percentage of male clients: 51 per cent
Product houses: VitaMan, Li’tya, Kerstin Florian

Where do your customers
come from? Our customers come from leisure, business, and sports and fitness visits. Spa-going couples are also increasing.

What do you offer male clients?
We introduced results-driven treatments specially designed for men. These include the De-Stress Face Treatment and Realigning Sports Massage. We also have a separate men’s spa zone, locker room, bathrobe, slippers and underwear for men.

How is the spa promoted in the fitness area? Our spa therapists and receptionist will walk around the pool once or twice a day offering people a free five-minute mini neck and shoulder massage. If guests would like a full treatment, we make an appointment and escort the guest to the spa. We gather two guests a day by doing this.

Men are more concerned with health than beauty, so we focus on the links between fitness and spa. We also have spa visuals on the TV in the fitness area to promote general information about eforea spa, such as the Men’s Journey treatment, plus any promotional offers. The spa brochure and price list is displayed in the gym and we do product give-aways in the locker rooms.

The eforea spa in Pattaya offers free mini treatments to promote its services

BOOSTING AVERAGE SPEND

Spa My Blend by Clarins, Toronto, Canada

Spa manager: Jill Carlen
Percentage of male clients: 28 per cent – a 16 per cent increase since 2012
Product houses: Spa My Blend by Clarins, Clarins For Men

How is the spa promoted in the fitness area? The spa and 24-hour gym are located together on one floor of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Toronto, and the gym is considered part of the spa facilities. It’s an integral part of our health offering to include the gym as part of the spa experience, and all spa guests have access to the gym.

A third-party fitness company maintains the gym and saltwater lap pool and we work with them to offer all new clients a complimentary 30-minute treatment as a welcome, and a 15 per cent discount on spa services for fitness members. We have several local gym members, most of whom are men, and they use spa services quite frequently.

What are the benefits of having male clients? They have a higher average spend per visit. Our female average spend is $195 versus the male average spend of $199. They also spend less time in the spa, which is quite good for business and results in a higher dollar per minute ratio than for women.

What do male clients want?
Our results-orientated treatments are the most popular with male clients and, if they are coming to the spa with a female, a treatment such as our 150-minute Blokes and Beer treatment – a men’s manicure, facial and massage followed by a beer – works well.

Spa My Blend by Clarins’ male visitors spend more money in the spa, but less time

REGULAR CUSTOMERS

Six Senses Spa, Westin Hotel, Paris, France

Spa manager: Melina Pourcel
Percentage of male clients: 50 per cent
Product houses: Sothys, Visoanska

What do you offer male clients? We offer a mixed menu and have a deep tissue massage that our male clients love.

How often do your male clients return on average? Once a month, once they’ve put their trust in a therapist. We have a mixed male/female team to give customers the choice of either. From the moment the male customer finds the masseur or masseuse who provides the treatment they need, they give their trust and come back to the spa regularly.

Men are loyal to their massage therapist

MALE-ONLY OFFERING

Pour Homme Luxury Mens Grooming, Fairmont Hotel, Dubai, UAE

Salon manager: Dennis Doroja
Percentage of male clients: 100 per cent
Product houses: Hommage

What do you offer male clients?
A complete male grooming service – haircut, shave, facial, manicure, pedicure and waxing. We use only products designed and created for men.

How do you promote the salon in the fitness area? We offer a special discount to all fitness club members and hotel apartment residents.

How do you market your services to men? Most of our new clients are the result of referrals from satisfied clients. We mostly gain popularity through word of mouth. Men are simple in their needs. Make them feel comfortable and let them sink in.

The Pour Homme spa in Dubai caters exclusively for men

PRIVACY MATTERS

Four Seasons Resorts, Maui, US

Spa manager (Americas): Pat Makozak
Percentage of male clients: 40–50 per cent
Product houses: OM4 Men, HydroPeptide, Somerville, ISUN

What do male spa-goers want?
Men want skincare produced with men’s skin health in mind. By bringing in more male-orientated skincare products, we’ve seen retail purchases by men increase 42 per cent.

Men also want to try out products in privacy. OM4 Men created an amenity display for our men’s locker area that makes all of its products available for guests to use at their discretion, in privacy. It’s confidence-building for our male clients to be able to try before they buy and it’s working wonders.

How do you market to men?
Activities and food are good images to use to reach men. Most of our guests are active and want to know what all the options are. They play hard, rest hard, then have a great meal.

As a resort property, marketing our services to couples always works well for us too.