Thai spas going global
By Nirmal Ghosh
GETTING high-spending tourists to soak in rose-petal baths and be treated to traditional back-rubs has proven to be a masterstroke for Thailand.
It is not only thriving as a hub for lavish spas - the industry helps to pull in more than 10 million tourists a year - its rub-a-dub and hot-tub resorts are also expanding at home and abroad.
The top-of-the-line Chiva Som, with its high-profile spa in Hua Hin south of Bangkok, is setting up a second resort spa in northern Thailand. It is also in talks with parties in Dubai, and has signed an agreement to set up a branch in Portugal.
Other spas have already expanded overseas.
For instance, Angsana, the Banyan Tree brand, has roots in Singapore, but has found even more fertile ground for growth in Thailand. That has helped take seed in half a dozen places, from Australia to Guam to China and India.
'Only Thailand has captured the high-spending international market successfully, with 80 per cent of total spa visits generated by international tourists,' Ms Julie Garrow, director of Singapore-based Intelligent Spas, said of the competition from the likes of Indonesia and Malaysia.
Studies by her independent research company show that in 2002 and last year, Thai spas attracted 2.6 million international tourists who brought in about US$85 million (S$143 million) in revenue.
A study reported that the country now has at least 230 spas employing more than 4,000 people.
On offer at top-end spas are an array of treatments and therapies, from Thai massage to Reiki, aromatherapy to water therapy, yoga to taichi to Ayurvedic massage.
The services do not come cheap - Chiva Som's rates are around US$345 a day - but drop-in, non-residential spas are also doing a booming business. Ms Stella Choe from London recently spent around 2,300 baht (S$98) for a 2 1/2-hour session.
The top-end spas are not a passing luxury either. Repeat customers form around 40 per cent of 10-year-old Chiva Som's clientele, for instance.
Now the leading companies are becoming global brands. Every week, British-born Joy Menzies, the managing director of Chiva Som, receives two or three e-mail messages from people asking how they can set up a resort like hers.
She said it takes around US$30 million to US$40 million to set up a spa on the scale of the company's 57-room resort in Hua Hin - which has a high ratio of 42 treatment rooms.
'The industry is growing at around 20 to 30 per cent a year,' Ms Menzies said. 'The average age of our clientele is around 45 and we get a lot of Europeans, but we also get young Asians; the Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong markets are very strong.'
The best-known, like Chiva Som and Angsana, have even started their own training academies in Thailand to produce highly trained staff.
Though they are now global brands, the big Thai spa names have one thing in common: Even if their employees are not all Thais, they are Asians.
They carry with them the hospitality that most Asian societies are known for; a quality that is a key ingredient in Thailand's spa industry.