the expert's advice
From Suite Benessere
Magazine
Issue N. 18 | Summer 2004
| Dr.
Cantoni,
we are the owners of a hotel that's in the center
of a large Italian city. A while ago, we had a beautiful
1,000 sq. meter wellness center built, which is
also open to the public. Half of the area is dedicated
to beauty treatments, while the remaining area is
dressing rooms, the reception, a gym, steam rooms
and a relaxation area. Having gotten things off
the ground a while ago, we have seen that, although
it boasts quite a few members, we are just breaking
even with it financially, with the greatest expenses
being personnel and beauty products. We have been
advised to increase our prices, but we're not convinced
that that would be best. Thank you in advance. Marco
C. |
Dear Marco, your situation is [unfortunately] a common
one in cases where a wellness center has been built in
the absence of a preliminary cost evaluation. In any case,
analyzing the few details you've given me, the fact that
50% of the area is used for beauty treatments stands out.
I hope that whoever drew up the plans chose to use equipment
that doesn't require the constant presence of personnel
while the client is being treated. If however, that is
the case, that would explain why it is so expensive for
you to have enough personnel to manually operate 500 sq.
meters of beauty center. One of the secrets of successfully
operating a wellness center in a hotel is the capacity
to make the client feel as though he is being pampered,
even without excessive personnel. This is possible if
you build a nice series of steam rooms that are in perfect
synergy and proportional space-wise with the beauty
treatment area. At the moment, you find yourselves in
quite a different situation. Calculating that the reception
area, dressing rooms, bathrooms and hallways generally
take up about 25% of a wellness center and that you may
have built a gym that is about 30-40 sq. m. in size,
that would leave about 200 sq. meters. If we take away
the space required for the relaxation area, the tea room
and the monitoring center, you probably only have about
90 sq. meters left for your steam rooms, which is quite
out of proportion to the 500 sq. meters of beauty treatment
area. A hotel owner should hire a project consultant who
can show him how the wellness area can be used by its
clients without the requiring excessive personnel which,
as you have seen, end up being a financial burden. Generally,
raising prices - except for rare cases - does
not help to solve the problem. A few months ago, my colleagues
and I were called on to give a consultation in a similar
situation. A hotel owner had raised his prices several
times and consequently began to lose customers. After
a careful analysis of every item in the book-keeping,
we found that certain facilities were constantly operating
in the red. For example, the project manager had built
two massage rooms whose running expenses basically made
it impossible to break even. After summing up the costs
[personnel, products, electric and the cost of the furnishings
and equipment], it was evident that, if he charged the
going rate for this service, it would always cost more
than it would yield. In the end, all we had to do was
to replace the existing equipment with more energy-efficient
machines that didn't require the constant presence of
personnel. The result was a reduction in personnel costs
by 20%, a 70% drop in energy consumption and a 45% savings
on products. It might seem strange to you, but before
consulting us, that hotel owner had never thought that
modifying those two facilities could have had such a positive
effect on the overall income of the center. I therefore
do not recommend raising your prices, but rather suggest
that you have a good analysis performed in order to determine
what facilities you are losing money on. This type of
analysis should normally be done while the initial plans
for a wellness center are being drawn up and, in any case,
before opening to the public.
| Dear
Daniele Cantoni, we are building a hotel with a
wellness center in a town on the border between
the Piedmont and Lumbardy regions. A few weeks before
our grand opening, we were told that we can't use
the tanning lamps that we had purchased because
they are more powerful than what the law allows
in Piedmont. Is this possible? What can we do? Greetings,
Francesco V. [Oleggio - Novara] |
It seems impossible, but in the myriad of regional decrees
and laws and their respective interpretations, my company
also often finds itself confronted with unexpected twists
in the regulations that must be followed in building a
wellness center in various regions and provinces. I'm
sorry about your grand opening, but what they told you
is true. The Piedmont region [and I believe it is the
only region that has this law] does not allow the use
of "class 4" tanning lamps in centers that operate
under a "beauty center" license. Tanning lamps
are categorized by class [from 1 to 4] depending on their
power [derived from the proportion of UVB rays to UVA
rays]. The only way that you would be able to use them
[in Piedmont] would be to require your customers to present
a doctor's prescription for each sitting, which would
be unthinkable, even in a center that has been opened
with a medical license. I suggest that you contact the
company that you purchased them from, in the hopes that
they have a similar class 3 model. The only other alternative
would be to enlarge your wellness center until you cross
the border with Lumbardy... because you can use your tanning
lamps there! |
