What exactly can you do to signal to your health-oriented guests that your brand is the one that will meet their needs? Consider these important factors as you tell your own wellness story.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve probably heard a lot about the word “wellness” lately. As an increasingly informed public becomes aware of their own role in creating and sustaining a healthy lifestyle, changes are becoming apparent in all facets of life. After years of continued growth, Whole Foods Supermarket’s sales have finally flattened; not because people don’t want organic and sustainable options, in fact quite the opposite. The corner grocer is now stocking organic vegetables, locally farmed beef, and the ubiquitous kale, so Whole Foods is facing more competition. Sales of soda in the U.S. fell in 2013 to their lowest level in almost 20 years. Type in “wellness” in the ITunes App store, and you will have over 1500 choices. Hotels have to recognize that this is not a short-lived trend, it’s a complete shift in mindset, and adapting to this new reality is imperative to stay relevant to today’s traveler. Whether it’s a few healthy items at the breakfast bar (rather than the sea of white often encountered) or the accessibility of bottled water, today’s guests are looking for options that help them maintain their healthy lifestyle regimen while on the road. Since health-minded travelers tend to patronize the spa and fitness zones of the hotels they stay in, these are a good place to start when devising a wellness makeover.

The desire by guests for wellness goes beyond their interest in properties that are “sustainably” operated or have a LEED certification. These guests are looking for personally impactful changes or amenities that enable them to enjoy a normal workout session, eat healthily, or get a good night’s sleep.

This presents both an opportunity and a challenge for hospitality brands. While you may not go to the effort of creating an entirely new wellness brand from the ground up, what exactly can you do to signal to your health-oriented guests that your brand is the one that will meet their needs? In our internal research regarding the formulation of an approach to this important issue, we discovered that the process of integrating wellness experiences into a hotel experience defied simple solutions, and required a more rigorous top-down approach. Consider these important factors as you tell your own wellness story.

1. Your Brand Promise – This first and most important step involves revisiting your original brand pillars and making sure that any wellness initiatives you create fit snugly within your vision and mission statement. Which elements of a wellness approach make sense for you and your guest, and which don’t? Wellness is a very broad term, and the extent to which you make changes should be determined by your brand identify and your guest desires. You don’t necessarily need to renovate or recreate your entire spa or property. You can dip your toe into the wellness waters without major capital expenditures. But this is a forceful movement that is not going away; ignore it at your peril. To avoid miscues or dabbling, organizations need to come up with a top-down approach. At Hilton, we’ve already articulated a lengthy wellness strategy for the organization to follow going forward. If you cannot articulate an overarching wellness strategy, then forget about playing in wellness. If you are unsure what that looks like for your brand, consider pooling all available internal resources for some deep brain time, as well as reaching out to consultants who can offer a lot of insight and tie you into the big picture of wellness and its various applications.

2. Desired Outcome – What makes you feel that this is a path you need to pursue? The word “wellness” is getting a lot of press attention, and creating a few wellness initiatives in your spa or property can definitely grab recognition. But the lasting value of the press is difficult to quantify. Can you charge more for a “wellness” service in the spa, and will it improve your gross margin? If you can generate both press and profits, you’re likely on the right track. While you may not have a logarithm for the result, an initiative that can deliver both is much more likely to be a good fit for your brand.

3. Guest Expectations – The word “spa” has a very broad definition. You’ve likely seen it on car washes and tanning salons as well as establishments that more closely fit the traditional notion. What does “spa” or “wellness” mean to YOUR guest? It’s important to be out in front of a trend or lifestyle change, but not so far ahead that you alienate your specific customer set. Make sure that your efforts are reflective of the common expectations of your guest and your geographic locale. Try to resist the urge to use ‘indigenous’ or ‘sense of place’ as the guiding light for your wellness solution. It’s become a default option in many circles; everyone does it; guests will be delighted if you think about an unexpected twist on what’s local and how these offerings can be shared in a differentiated and memorable way.

4. Ease of Replication – Wellness initiatives are not always as simple as purchasing a particular piece of equipment. It may be a new method of using an existing product, ingredient or fitness apparatus, one which requires specialized training or supply implications. In most cases, steps need to be taken to ensure that your facility is able to deliver the desired result at any time, any day, for any guest. Don’t make the mistake of selecting a fanciful solution and then being unable to consistently deliver because of complicated training, supply, or cost implications.

5. Pictures Sell – Visual communication and merchandizing is supplanting the traditional channels of selling to an increasingly savvy and social customer audience. Major corporations are directing significant resources to taking us even deeper into this phenomenon. The impact that imagery will have on our future business is just beginning. For a topic like “wellness,” which has different associations for everyone, visual identifiers can help the guest to connect to your concept. Properties incorporating wellness experiences and products should be prepared to tell that story in powerful images - some staged, but many spontaneous scenes - as the future wellness customer will have a voracious appetite for this medium.

6. Guest Survey – One great advantage that existing properties have is that you don’t need to guess what the guest is interested in, you can ask them. Some spa software programs have an easy survey function built in to the automatically-generated thank you email, but plenty of other options exist to elicit feedback. As with all surveys, consider the nuances and grey areas when you formulate your questions. If you ask guests if they are interested in wellness, they’ll certainly say yes; but, what does that tell you? Ask specific questions such as, “If we were to offer a ‘wellness lifestyle membership,’ how likely are you to join?”

7. The Price is Right – Just as with spas, wellness is no longer something sought only by the luxury guest. Health and wellness are mainstream movements that guests from all segments want to participate in to some degree. This democratization of spa services will be quickly followed by the same in wellness and beauty. A deep understanding of your customer demographic and spending habits will enable you to structure an offering that provides the right combination of value and results for both your property and your guests.

8. All Aboard – During the entire process of programming wellness for your brand, and beyond, it’s crucial that your entire staff is involved with and buys into your proposed evolution. If you conduct a strategic visioning session with your staff at the beginning of the process, you will gain much valuable information by asking those on the front lines what they are seeing and hearing from guests every day. Front desk and reservations staff will be able to share what guests are requesting in terms of rooms and amenities; housekeeping can shed light on guest room behaviors, and food & beverage staff can share insights on trends and requests in dietary preferences. Yes, you’ve already asked the guests themselves what they want, but there are two challenges with that scenario. Number one; they’re not going to give your questions the kind of attention and focus that you might be hoping for, they’re just going to think about it for 20 seconds and give quick answers. Number two; the guest doesn’t always know what they want. Sometimes the most impactful needs are those that cannot be articulated. A guest is not likely to ask you for something that they don’t even know is an option, so utilizing your staff and their shared knowledge of guest behavior can add another dimension to your endeavor. For example, part of our wellness strategy at Hilton is to deeply involve our team members in our concept programming. For our full service eforea spa concept, we have recently involved all of our team members to create a global treatment enhancement menu with accompanying protocols. Their expertise and collaboration not only engenders great culture amongst our teams across regions, but it also delivers treatments that are fit for our guests and efficient for our team members to execute.

So now that you have a process to consider for your wellness approach, you’ll have to determine what you can do, at what price, and in what time-frame, always keeping your brand vision and core consumer in mind. Wellness means different things to everyone. You’ll have to evaluate what will make the most sense for your customer, and can easily be replicated and become part of your brand standards. You need only look around you, when you are off-property, to see how behaviors are changing and to consider what appeals to your guest.

Guests who are wellness-oriented tend to use both the spa and fitness components of your property. They also tend to be tuned in more to trending food and nutrition routines. Recognizing this, over the past twelve months at Hilton we have revised many of our corporate processes and work streams to approach wellness holistically. Wellness is a multi-faceted business, and inherently requires us to think deeply about the interrelations between food & beverage, spa, and fitness. Our Hilton concept and creative experts are approaching the issue of wellness together through collaboration, not in separate silos. This aligned approach creates many benefits for the organization that follow many of the key guidelines previously noted.

For example, we’ve recently crafted a new identity for the Waldorf Astoria Spa concept, and we knew that visual identity for this iconic brand, steeped in history, was essential. We have taken steps to make sure that we engineer a visual story that is extraordinary and innovative. At each Waldorf Astoria Spa, we are eliminating many of the expected, some would say clichéd, spa images that dominate treatment menus. To bring a fresh take to this visual experience, we use an ‘iconic woman in white’ (pictured to the right OR left) to tell a story of strength and renewal following a spa visit. Each Waldorf Astoria Spas will feature its own stunning interpretation of this inspirational image linking personal wellness to the unique environments guests can discover at our luxury properties. We believe this approach creates essential space for the guest to interact with the brand, in their own way. This is one of our first steps in thinking differently about visual communication to merchandize wellness offerings better so that guests know that when they stay at one of our Hilton branded properties, we have taken great care to program offerings that fit their world. You can do the same for your brand; just make sure you have a clever method, whether it’s the eight step process above or something you’ve tailored yourself.

The wellness customers are coming. Be ready, if you’re not already and good luck.

About the author:

Mr. Crabbe leads overall strategy and brand management for Spa at Hilton Worldwide. Hilton is one of the largest operators of spa and wellness businesses in hospitality and manages spas under its Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, Curio, Hilton, Doubletree and Embassy Suites brands. His team develops concepts, tools and resources that enhance the guest experience, position Hilton brands as spa innovators and create measurable commercial value for its community of owners and operators. In addition to his brand responsibilities, Mr. Crabbe leads operations for Hilton’s spa portfolio in the Americas and is responsible for new project development, delivery of financial and guest satisfaction objectives, and the leadership of a field of talented spa leaders.