The spa for self discovery

In a world-first for hotels of its kind, Madinat Jumeirah has introduced an integrated medical centre to its popular Talise spa. Louise Oakley reports from the consultation room

Talise at Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai offers something entirely new in the world of wellness. The beautiful spa, already famous for its spacious treatment rooms spread out along winding paths and shaded gardens, has recently added an integrated medical centre and a completely new therapeutic treatment menu to its offering.

This is not only a new launch for Jumeirah Group, but a first for hotels and resorts worldwide, according to spa director Jeff Butterworth, a naturopathic doctor and iridology expert — and the man behind the new-look Talise.

“We’re really first in that genre of the leisure market doing this kind of thing. You’ve got your Canyon Ranches but they’re all dedicated facilities,” says Butterworth.

“What we are trying to explain to people is that Talise is this venue for lifestyle change; it’s wellness, it’s spa, it’s fitness, it’s cuisine — these four key elements. We’re redefining what spa is, it’s still the spa but with the services we offer we’re setting a new benchmark,” says Butterworth.

So while guests can still go to Talise for a massage, they can also avail of a variety of therapies selected from conventional medicine — general practitioner Nancy Nagy Louka is part of the core Talise team — through to alternative medicine, as well as engage in full health assessments and programmes.

Butterworth says the existing Talise was chosen as the site for the integrated medical centre because it is Jumeirah’s flagship spa.

“This is very much a test case for all our new properties and all our new spas will have an element of wellness. Some of the new properties have large facilities, similar to this, and bigger as well, while Frankfurt for example has smaller elements. The whole thing is a model that can be scaled to different locations,” explains Butterworth.

The physical changes to Talise to add the medical centre were not dramatic, comprising four consultation rooms that, while far more welcoming than a typical doctor’s room, are more functional than design driven.

What was vitally important, however, was the addition of Talise’s onsite blood laboratory.

“We wanted to be very much legitimate and professional in what we do, so the core element to that was obviously the laboratory — we wanted to be able to offer reproduce-able results, be professional in what we do and Jumeirah being Jumeirah, we want to be the best. There’s no other property in the world that has its own blood laboratory on site. There would be very few medical centres in Dubai that have their own lab on site,” asserts Butterworth.

The laboratory is run by technician Marvin Aninang, who performs cutting-edge diagnostics from complete biochemistry analysis to live blood analysis. Traditional markers are observed for accurate diagnosis of disease, but in conjunction with this, Talise health practitioners — including naturopath Jaclyn Harris and homeopath Tania Bardhan — undertake optimal health blood evaluations, which are more predictive than diagnostic.

The advantage of having the laboratory on-site is that results can be turned around very quickly for guests only staying at the hotel for a few days. Indeed, by working as a team, the practitioners can produce lengthy reports and action plans in the time it takes a guest to have a treatment and relax by the pool.

In addition to the various blood tests, Talise offers iridology, a wellness body scan and is adding an ECG as well to enable it to refer guests to cardiologists if necessary.

“The iridology is something very different to the other tools, and that comes from my background as an iridologist so I wanted to bring that here,” says Butterworth. “It’s a simple tool, people really enjoy it because it’s something very personal about themselves. That’s more of a holistic diagnostic tool rather than a conventional tool, so that fitted in.”

While the equipment was costly, minimum investment was needed to convert Talise because the spa was already the “perfect environment” for such a focus on wellness, explains Butterworth. This doesn’t mean it is a simple concept to establish, however — the extension to Talise has been three years in planning and development.

“I know that a lot of other large hotel groups and other groups are looking to do similar things because the concept fits very well to spa. The problem is it’s not as easy as people think to do,” says Butterworth.

“It’s always hard to find the right people, but it sounds really simple to set up a medical centre and there’s very few people with that understanding of both spa and medical. Just to set up a medical centre in itself in the UAE is a whole challenge with the different licences you have to have etc, but to try and get it to fit with spa is a tricky thing too,” he says.

Sourcing products and the supplements prescribed to guests is also “tough”, according to the team.

“It is very difficult because a lot of these products have never been heard of before,” says Butterworth, which can make it hard to classify them in the UAE.

“Spa products have to be registered with the municipality, it’s a six-month process getting new products in. There are some supplements available in the local market but a lot of the individual elements are not available,” he says.

With the team recruited, equipment sourced and products available, Butterworth’s next consideration was the pricing of the new Talise services. A variety of consultations are available, but the Talise Wellness Signature Integrated Consultation costs AED 650 (US $177), which includes the initial consultation, series of tests and feedback – during which the guest is provided with reams of information and ideas to help them embrace a healthier lifestyle specific to them.

“One of the reasons Talise is so successful in the local market is we understand that locals don’t like to be charged like tourists, so we’ve got a whole membership programme here that the locals use to make it affordable on a regular basis. So with the wellness components, if you price yourself out of the market just for the fact of being here then the success is not going to be there, so we wanted to create an affordable model for the local market.

“We’re going to work predominately with locals for the first six months and then the pricier options would be when people actually come and stay here in the resort and do the week-long programmes. Everyone thinks ‘it’s Jumeirah, it’s going to cost you a fortune’, but it doesn’t necessarily. The pricing for that wellness consultation, often you would pay that much money just for lab work,” says Butterworth.

Just as the development of the new Talise was a gradual process, so too will be the growth of the business. Word of mouth will be a key factor, as 90% of people will use a different health care facility based upon a referral, says Butterworth.

“That’s why it takes time to grow these things organically,” he says.

But gradually, he thinks the market for the integrated health services will grow, as it becomes “the new paradigm of healthcare”.

“You pay for a hospital room what you pay to stay here for a night, so you might as well stay here and get that same level of health care,” says Butterworth. “Hotels are springing up everywhere and they are all trying to differentiate themselves from one another, and I think you’ll find that in 10 years’ time, definitely in 50 years’ time, the medical model as we know it will be much more in this kind of environment.”