A hint of lime

Ari Utari, spa manager at Lime Spa at Desert Palm, Dubai, tells Louise Oakley why it is important that therapists are given the freedom to engage with guests in order to create tailored treatments.

Lime Spa at Desert Palm, Dubai is one of only two such spas operated by luxury boutique hotel operator Per Aquum. Each of the two spas - the other being at Per Aquum’s first property, Huvafen Fushi in the Maldives - are vastly different in both their style and design, reflecting the fact that at its core, Lime Spa aims to be truly personalised.

In Dubai, Lime benefits from an iconic location overlooking the polo fields of Desert Palm Polo Club from within the Desert Palm hotel, which has quietly been building a loyal following over the past couple of years.

Located slightly outside of Dubai on the Al Awir Road, Desert Palm has escaped some of the intense competition between the beachfront hotels at one end and the city hotels at the other and instead attracted its own unique clientele looking to escape and explore new territory.

Lime Spa seeks to capitalise on this and ensure its guests totally unwind — as the website says, “you are invited to come out of the past, out of your comfort zone and out of your shell”.

Spa manager Ari Utari, who has extensive experience in spas in Bali, Maldives, Saipan, New Zealand and Paris, explains the philosophy.

How would you sum up the philosophy of Lime Spa?
Lime at Desert Palm is different. It offers personalised treatments tailored to the individual, aromatherapy, bespoke massages, signature rituals for all body types, dedicated music menu, visiting spa icons and a forward thinking approach to the wellbeing of body and mind.

Our therapists are given freedom to engage with their guest, something which is often missing from the uniform treatments found in more ‘corporate’ spas. At Lime there is no ‘one size fits all’ package as each treatment is tailored to the individual.

Instead, Lime invites guests to drop their cares, worries, guard and anything that has been weighing them down. Lime is about trying something new, something different, something fresh, something that perhaps pushes their boundaries and moves them, comfortably, out of their comfort zone.

What facilities does Lime Spa offer?
Situated at Desert Palm, each of the six treatment rooms overlooks one of the four championship polo fields — a lush green landscape that is far removed from the hectic pace of the city centre, creating an inviting country backdrop and secluded and peaceful oasis.

Each room features the latest in spa technology. The five single rooms offer a selection of day beds and soft furnishings and one has a standalone roll top bath tub. The double room also has a Geisha tub and a day bed area, which can be enjoyed pre- or post- treatment.

Additional features include a spa and wellness boutique, consultation room, changing rooms, and ‘Sublime’, which offers steam room, sauna, ice room, cold plunge, heated lounge and two chromo therapeutic showers, incorporating an aroma infused cold to hot experience with light therapy.

How does Lime Spa fit into Dubai’s spa market?
The fact that we tailor the treatments to our guests is one of our key USPs. Our therapists will talk to each guest and tailor make their treatment focusing on areas of specific concern to them.

The products we use also allow us to do this as they are designed with a ‘made to measure’ application. Guests who book a treatment at Lime can also use all of the facilities on a complimentary basis and spend the afternoon by the infinity pool.

Which spa products do you use?
We use Anne Semonin, which offers a very different concept from many of the other brands that are available in the marketplace.

Anne Semonin uses a blending technique which is tailor made to each individual, and the products are personalised depending on the skincare needs of the guest.

Based on the consultation, the spa therapist creates a unique blend and will discuss the benefits of the product to target the area of concern.

The other product we use for facials is Eve Lom, the cult beauty brand from the UK. Eve Lom’s philosophy is based on the fact that every living organism pulsates with energy, sending out information about the physical, biological and emotional state of the body.

Through regular cleansing, decongesting and exfoliation, this energy can be regulated to help maintain healthy skin. These facials use the Eve Lom signature product, the Eve Lom Cleanser, which was famously hailed by Vogue Magazine as ‘probably the best cleanser in the world’.

We only launched these facials in November 2010 and they are already fast becoming one of our most popular treatments.

How is treatment room occupancy and how do you measure performance?
Being located on a retreat rather than in the centre of the city, we find that most of our business comes in over the weekend as people are looking for that short getaway.

This means that our therapists’ occupied hours increase over the weekend, with quieter periods during the week.

The weekly rotas are reflective of this with days off scheduled for our therapists mid-week to maximise our revenue over the busy weekend time periods.

We do regular assessments of all of our team members through internal training and mystery shoppers. We also track our revenue from special offers and ask our guests where they heard about us.

We also host quarterly spa mornings for all of our regular guests with special offers and treatment demonstrations and ask for feedback from those guests who attend.

What percentage of your revenues is spa retail?
The Eve Lom Cleanser and Oligapure Moisturiser are our two best selling products and at present our retail is 20% of treatments.

What spa trends do you foresee for the coming year?
Massages are still one of the most popular treatments (Lime Spa’s Evolve Hot Stone Massage is a best seller) and I think that will continue throughout 2011.

People are also looking for that little bit extra and we always try to see how we can match the treatments and our offers to what people are looking for at that particular moment.

A while ago, Lime Spa was looking at developing its own in-house natural spa brand. Did that progress?
This is a brand we are still interested in pursuing, and we are looking into possibilities, however, it is not something we would be looking to launch at the moment.

What other news is there from Lime and Per Aquum?
In 2011 we are looking to revamp the Lime Brand using a top spa consultant to see how we can further work on the wow element of the services we offer and the interaction between guest and team member.

We will also be opening our latest Lime Spa at Niyama Maldives towards the end of 2011. With a total of 86 rooms, Niyama will be Per Aquum’s first Resort (Per Aquum’s Retreats have less than 60 rooms).

Niyama will be developed around naturally modern, iconic designs and concepts and will have a Lime Spa to provide therapies designed to nurture, heal and restore, utilising and infusing indigenous holistic components from around the globe.