Spa Attraction
UK consumers make an estimated six million visits to spas throughout Britain each year according to new research undertaken by The Leisure Database Company, the one source for leisure market intelligence.
The research, published in ‘The State of the UK Spa Report 2007’, was launched at the inaugural SPATEC event for the Spa Industry, held in Malta at the end of April.
The ‘State of the UK Spa Industry Report’ highlighted for the first time the size and scale of the UK industry, with consumers having access to 402 spas with 5 or more treatment rooms, all classified by spa type. It is estimated that there are 3,373 treatment rooms available for treatments across the UK.
The research also estimated there to be 4,571 therapists employed across the 402 UK spas, with around 6 million spa treatments purchased every year.
The two dominant spa types (hotel spas and spas within fitness clubs) lag behind day spas in attracting visitor numbers. Hotel spas account for 41% of the market and spas within fitness clubs account for 27% and yet they attract on average 12,600 and 10,900 consumers per annum respectively. In contrast, day spas only account for 12% of the total number of spas and yet they work hard attracting twice the number of consumers that spas within fitness clubs do: on average, 20,400 consumers every year.
“The research confirms industry thinking that hotel spas and spas within fitness clubs have the greatest opportunity.” comments leading spa consultant Berni Hawkins. “The companies that decide to invest in the spa industry will have the potential to take the biggest share of the market. For too many years these operators have paid lip service to the spa or beauty facilities, however the research highlights this need no longer be the case. Many of these facilities have the added advantage of having some wet spa or thermal facilities on site”
David Minton, Managing Director at The Leisure Database Company, comments: “Consumers should shop around to get the best deals for their spa experiences and treatments. Our research shows that there are meaningful price differentials across basic spa treatments and that members of fitness clubs receive significant discounts on spa treatments.”
ENDS
Notes
About The State of the Spa Industry Report 2007
The inaugural State of the Spa Industry Report 2007 is a thorough review of the UK spa industry, detailing the size, scope and scale of the spa industry. Undertaken in partnership with SPATEC, the leading business forum for the spa industry, this comprehensive report set the benchmark for year on year analysis of this evolving market. This research is supported by The Spa Business Association.
The report includes: market size estimates, industry structure and segments, lists popular treatments and facilities, average pricing for main treatments and investigates discounts, comparisons of key features within the main four spa categories, giving a greater understanding of the composition of the UK spa industry. A copy of the report is available on request.
Spa Definition
For the purposes of this report a “Spa” is defined as follows:
“A Spa offers professionally supervised treatments, to enhance health, well-being and relaxation and has a minimum of five treatment rooms”.