[L-R] Paul Hawco, Afrah Hamdy, and Sayed Salem, photographed at the Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort’s hammam. [L-R] Paul Hawco, Afrah Hamdy, and Sayed Salem, photographed at the Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort’s hammam.

HOTELIER: Let’s talk about spas in this region; would you say that the UAE is being seen as a destination for spa and wellness holidays?

Sayed SALEM: We have the spas, we have the qualified therapists and the qualified mangers but the authorities have to work more in marketing the UAE as a destination for spas. The UAE, and Dubai in particular, is known for its culinary experiences and now the authorities need to take the spas out to the market too.

Paul Hawco: Dubai has most of the best therapeutic facilities in the world ,and the expertise in the spa sector has matured and we are drawing experts in. We are quite competitive and innovative and do a good job. I don’t think we are a spa destination yet: we need to have a few destination spas for that — that would help! But we do have some great spas and wellness facilities although it is not yet fully understood beyond the operations teams.

HOTELIER: Are there other countries in the MENA region that are known for wellness and spas?

Paul: Europe and the US are the founders and Asia is strong, but they don’t do a better job than we do. I went there and wondered ‘what’s the big deal?’ Guests are coming for the destination — you can’t replicate Thailand or Bali, but Dubai can leverage those things and be more indigenous. We have a lot of healing rituals and we need to expose these further.

Sayed: I see that there are a lot of themed spas in Asia but if you look to the Middle East we are not yet there. We have great spas but we don’t have the concept to build a spa that is themed like in Asia.

Paul: It is coming though, I promise you! We have Petra and the Dead Sea in Jordan, Banyan Tree in Ras Al Khaimah and Six Senses Zighy Bay in Oman and Abu Dhabi has a couple, and in Dubai there’s a few that are close. Speaking about the wellness tourism industry — there are a lot of numbers being thrown around — there is a US $4.3 trillion wellness economy, of which $500 billion is actually wellness tourism and inside that there is $90 billion that’s spa.

Spa and wellness means every possible thing, such as sales of beauty products and yoga mats to fitness and nutrition, so it’s hard to actually grasp ‘what does that mean for me?’ At Talise we dig deeper into this realm and what’s coming. For wellness tourism, our capture rate is around 3-5% and even if we shut down all our marketing collateral these people would still find us. In the future, I see us getting from 4% to 15-20% where it should be and I’d like to see that in four years’ time. It should be a viable business and I’d like to see that.

Sayed: It will grow gradually, but up to 20%? It could go up to 5%, hopefully 10%.

Paul: There are already spas here that achieve that though, I can’t say who they are but they do 10% now. The spas at the One & Only and Burj Al Arab, for example, they have a very high capture rate because they have positioned themselves to attract that type of market. And the people that are coming, the wellness travellers, spend 130% more than normal travellers. Our spas are so big and they are under-utilised for the most part. No spa in the city is at full capacity — we all can do more business. We just don’t have the proper guests in the hotels sometimes.

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