SUBMITTED BY:
President, Brazilian Spa Assoc.
What are some changes you have noticed in your customers this past year? Are you seeing any new requests from consumers?
It’s impressive how fast the Brazilian spa market is developing. When compared to 5 years ago, this industry has definitely grown over 20% per year. That is a result of the increasing “wellness culture” of the population, especially in big cities. It has really changed the way people look at the spas, which are more and more becoming part of people’s day by day life. As time goes, the services offered in the spas are being explored by the press, people are getting more interested in the benefits of going to spas, spas are becoming attractive places for events and social meetings, and the overall wellness lifestyle is increasingly depending on the spa offers. All this perspective has brought a new milestone for the spa industry on the customer’s view: If everybody goes, why wouldn’t I? What does a spa actually offers that everybody is talking about it?
For instance, the Spa Week, an event organized by the Brazilian Spa Association, jumped from 14 spas participating in the first edition in late 2009, to more than 100 spas early this year, with over 20 thousand people participating. This brings up the following situation: customers are starting to develop more and more of the spa services and structures. Even though there is a large percentage of new customers for spas, there is still a great number of spa-goers that are trying different spas, different services and different experiences in alternative locations, which requires the Brazilian spa industry to be both educative (for those new clients) and professionalized (for those exigent spa-goers). This fact has positioned this market to be at the same time new and less explored on one hand professional and well structured on the other hand, which certainly generates a great amount of opportunities for