Clever ideas for the spa that pay off.
The good news: Wellness is increasingly becoming a way out to enjoy. Guests take their time to increase their life energy. Health is becoming the central theme of daily life. Deep regeneration is more important than ever for more people. That means: Wellness with wellness applications, sauna and swimming pool is too weak for the future alone. The trendsetters among hoteliers are already testing new concepts and offers that will support those seeking a different lifestyle.
Researchers at Matthias Horx’s Zukunftsinstitut (Institute for the Future) are pointing the way with the “Future Health” study. Selfness – improving life skills – is at the centre of this. At its core there are four fields. The first is physical competence, which involves eating a healthy diet, exercising and staying fit. Second, emotional life competence: This means finding the work-life balance and dealing positively and emotionally with the social environment such as partners, colleagues and family. Third, biographical growth competence: It means being able to make independent decisions in complex life situations or crises. Fourthly, maturity competence: It means being able to learn and to continue a conscious gain of experience into old age.
Around this topic Selfness develops increasingly a huge field at Coachings, therapies, training offers and councellors. They are to support in finding the personal life goals. The chance for hoteliers lies in participating in the social search for health with answers. Soft health forms the basis for all future health offers, say the researchers. For example, a hotel room is designed and furnished to support health. Concepts for enjoyment in restaurants create culinary delights with healthy and healing ingredients. Soft Health has a direct effect on people’s sense of well-being and thus also promotes business. This works equally well in wellness hotels and business hotels. This is demonstrated by the Hotel Corbin at Munich Airport. The modernly designed rooms are equipped with Feng Shui feel-good materials, the beds are equipped with allergy-friendly fabrics, and each room has a power circuit that reduces electrosmog. This is not necessarily typical for a classic business hotel. Friedrich Klumpp’s soft health concept is quite different. The chef takes his guests on a journey through the Black Forest and shows them how they can conjure up a healthy gourmet menu from the ingredients they collect along the way.
Wellness is becoming more diverse: it is developing into a holistic relaxation culture with different application depths: regeneration, intimacy and sustainability. This is shown by the large influx of holistic healing arts such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Because in the core these treatments do not want to heal illnesses, but to maintain health.
In addition, more and more women and men are discovering wellness as a worthwhile investment in their own relaxation and beauty. The Wellness Hotels & Resorts are registering an increased interest in anti-aging and detox programmes. They want to slow down the aging process by revitalizing methods, against the trend to beauty at any price with Botox, beauty operations and laser treatments in the lunch break. The motto of the professionals: Happy Aging.
“Attractiveness is not a question of age, but of where you come from and where you live, of ‘who am I?’, what position do I have in life,” says Spa manager Carina Laux, from the Vital- und Wellnesshotel Zum Kurfürsten in Bernkastel-Kues. Her concept includes special treatments such as a treatment against cell aging with fresh lemon and herbs. “We offer our guests effective effects, extraordinary rituals, peace and security in all our treatments”.
This trend is also implemented by hotels like the Allgäuer Hotels Bad Clevers Gesundheitsresort & Spa, Schüle’s Gesundheitsresort & Spa with Kneipp cures, Menschels Vitalresort in Bad Sobernheim with Felke loam cures and the Parkhotel am Soier See with Mayr medicine cures. The development towards Selfness opens new doors especially for anti-aging. Neuroscience proves that health and beauty almost always find their roots in the human brain. The image one has of oneself is the basis of health and beauty. Therefore, more and more offers are aimed at mental health, such as the Hotel Hochschober on the Turracher Höhe in Carinthia.
With the increased demands on performance, the demands on the body are also changing. After all, brain workers must always be “on” and function, constantly adapt to new conditions, colleagues, projects and ways of thinking and complete intensive work periods. According to the World Health Organization, stress will be one of the triggers for the five most common diseases by 2020.
Relax in a business hotel
Therefore, in addition to a healthy lifestyle with regular physical activity, balanced nutrition and relaxation, wellness offers help you to relax: from massages to light therapy, from Alm-Yurveda, the Bavarian form of Ayurveda in the Hotel Hubertus – Alpin Lodge & Spa in Balderschwang, to Thalasso with Nordic sea treasures in the Biohotel Miramar in Tönning, to glass chip loungers in business costumes or suits in the Hotel Roomers in Frankfurt. To ensure that the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual sources of one’s own energy supply do not dry up, work-life balance is becoming increasingly important. Studies show: Every second respondent would choose a hotel where work and leisure could be combined for a short break. This is why even classic business hotels can hardly do without a relaxation area. In the Roomers Hotel in Frankfurt, for example, the wellness area is designed as an open connection between work (conference rooms) and relaxation (spa). The focus is on short and effective relaxation sessions on massage and glass chip loungers. Personal training, massages and yoga are also included.
The key words are regeneration and intimacy. Those who integrate both into their spa concept, for example with spa suites, are on the right track. According to a survey by the German Wellness Association, around 40 percent of the hotels surveyed are registering more and more couples asking for offers in a private atmosphere: men and women, friends, mothers and daughters. The marina residence Hohe Düne in Warnemünde, for example, offers special theme spa suites for men and does not increasingly register father-and-son time-outs, but also appointments for business meetings. The park hotel at the Soier lake seduces guests in the African Spa Suite in the own four walls on time with buffalo milk foot baths, Massagen with Marula oil and African Wellnessanwendungen to an exotic relaxation journey. The New Life Hotels in the Ammergau Alps are for couples who wish to have children. In short, intimate spa experience and togetherness are among the aspiring desires of those seeking relaxation.
Sustainability plays a role in all concepts. What is meant is the gentle treatment of nature. The Wellnessbranche is supported on the way there leading by professionals: The Wellness hotels & Resorts examine for example the environmentalcompatible and economically productive management with their 50 partner hotels with the Tv Rhine country. The German Wellness Association founded a Green Spa network in 2010. Managing Director Lutz Hertel brings together companies that support wellness and spa facilities in sustainable management. These include energy- and cost-efficient lighting concepts, building-biologically harmless materials, room air cleaning systems on a natural basis, alternative insulating materials and innovative fittings that save up to 60 percent water.
Natural cosmetics and other treatment products support authentic, sustainable wellness offers. Pino from Hamburg, for example, presents Natural Spa Therapy and counts houses such as the Budersand Hotel Golf & Spa Sylt, the Wellness & Natur Hotel Schliffkopf in the Black Forest and the Designhotel Ritzenhof Hotel & Spa am See in Saalfelden among its customers. On the Kiel Fjord, Oceanwell’s marine biologists extract natural active ingredients almost exclusively from the local sea. They cultivate the laminaria algae in an aquafarm. The researchers extract certified natural cosmetics and algae products for spas from the marine active ingredients. Houses like the Wellnesshotel Birke in Kiel, the Biohotel Miramar in Tönning, the Upstalsboom Hotelresidenz & Spa in Kühlungsborn and the Radisson Blu Park in Dresden create sustainable application concepts.
Investments in products and services with honest sustainability have an economic impact. According to the “Future Health” study, the chances of profit in the coming years lie in the health sector: whether as a pure medical wellness concept or by converting one’s own hotel into a place of soft health. The lived concept is decisive for success.