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2013 Trend Report: How it Will Affect The Day Spa Industry
Guest post by Sallie Fraenkel, Executive Vice President.
As Yogi Berra once said (I rarely, if ever, quote sports figures, but this one is apt), “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
SpaFinder® Wellness has been forecasting trends for the past 10 years, and I’ve been involved with this process for nine of them (somehow, that doesn’t seem possible)! And we usually do a pretty good job of predicting the trends (in fact, Susie Ellis, our president, grades us each year on how we do . . . how’s that for accountability)?
Forecasting implies a prediction of future situations or results, and that is why we call our report a “trends forecast.” Click Here to download the 2013 Trend Report.
Utilizing a team of research analysts, we develop the global spa and wellness trends over the course of an entire year. It’s a painstaking process where we use ongoing surveys with our network that consists of over 20,000 spa, wellness, fitness, and beauty providers, thousands of travel agents, and hundreds of thousands of consumers. In addition, we visit many spas around the world (one of the best parts of the job) and interview top industry stakeholders.
The result is a future view of what we think is coming in the year ahead for our industry. Sometimes a trend is ahead of its time, as is the case with this year’s “Mindfulness Massage.” “Wellness Tourism,” a prediction from 2010, is just now starting to gain traction, although we saw it coming onto the scene almost three years ago. One of our 2008 trends, “Taking Sleep Seriously… Especially if You Want to Lose Weight,” really raised a few eyebrows back then. But now, most of us in the spa industry have come to understand the importance of sleep and address it in many ways in the treatments now offered.
How can these trends help you in your business? Learning the background and research behind the trends will help you think further ahead to serve your customers’ needs and attract new clientele. In my ESI presentation, we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty to make sense of the 2013 trends so that you can practically apply them in what you do.
Sallie Fraenkel joined SpaFinder Wellness in 2004, bringing more than 20 years of marketing experience and a lifelong passion for wellness to the company. As executive vice president, corporate development and industry relations, Sallie has helped shape the company during a period of exponential growth and plays a leading role in the development of the company’s wellness initiatives and Worklife Wellness programs. A regular broadcast commentator, her expertise spans the fields of health and holistic living, and she has traveled the world as a spokesperson for SpaFinder Wellness, sharing her knowledge with industry leaders and media.
Prior to joining the company, Sallie was senior vice president of Showtime Networks, directing retail and sell-through distribution and marketing. She was also instrumental in creating merchandising and licensing strategies for Showtime’s original series.
Sallie is a graduate of Penn State University, and in 2004 was accorded a Distinguished Alumni Award. She is a self-admitted foodie and can be found in a Pilates studio as often as possible.
