Without a top-to-bottom commitment to delivering an authentic experience, your spa business could run out of gas By Vivienne O’Keeffe The good news is that U.S. spa visits surpassed 180 million for the first-time last year, an annual increase of 2.5 per cent. Income also set a new record of $16.8 billion, up 3.1 per cent, with the total number of spa businesses up 1.1 per cent. The bad news? If sinking morale and staff shortages aren’t...

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Will your business benefit from medi-spa treatments like laser and CoolSculpting? What you need to ask yourself By Vivienne O’Keeffe Many spas have already added medical spa treatments to their existing list of services. The two most prominent ones – laser treatments and CoolSculpting® – require not only a significant capital outlay, but also staff and training to run them. The first step in figuring out if they’re right for you is to look at...

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New discoveries about the skin’s connection to happiness, immunity and possibly even autism may dramatically alter the way we deliver touch therapy By Vivienne O’Keeffe Published in Spa Inc. magazine’s Summer 2017 issue It seems the body’s largest organ might also be the least understood. The mystery began in 1939, when Swedish physiologist Yngve Zotterman noticed unusual electrical responses from cats’ legs being slowly stroked...

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Our sense of smell can open many doors By Vivienne O’Keeffe Published in Spa Life magazine’s Summer 2017 issue Ever walked into a place you hadn’t been to for years and instantly recalled the smell? Maybe a church, a campsite, a ferry boat, or an aunt’s house? Smell can access your memory recall in an instant, as if you have fallen through a trap door and stepped back in time. The smell of baking bread from a wood burning stove, for...

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The wellness industry has reached $3.7 trillion worldwide. How much wellness will your business be offering? By Vivienne O’Keeffe Published in Spa Inc. magazine’s Winter 2016/2017 issue The modern spa is about to get a giant makeover. Once a place to merely relax and be nurtured, it will become a refuge from the noise and stress of technology, traffic and crammed schedules. Riding a wave of new evidence linking general wellness to...

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The spa industry needs to understand and embrace the new wellness phenomenon By Vivienne O’Keeffe, AAD, PEA, CIBTAC Published in Spa Canada magazine’s March/April 2017 issue As a designer of programs and business systems for spas for more than 20 years now, I’ve always tried to incorporate the multiple dimensions of wellness (physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual, environmental) into my planning for clients. Now, having just...

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