Service description and types of spas
Spas can be divided into different types. These are day spa, salon/spa, destination spa, resort spa, hotel spa, club and medispa.
A Spa can be “a health resort near a spring or at the seaside ; a fashionable hotel usually in a resort area ; or a place of business with equipment and facilities for exercising and improving physical fitness” (www.aj.com). However, there are two concepts that all these definitions have in common, that of relaxation and wellbeing. This report will concentrate on spas concerning hotels and the hospitality industry.
In the hotel setting, spas used to be considered more as just another department to generate revenue and attract guests, but not necessarily much of a profit. “However, in recent years, hotel spas have followed the path of the other operating departments and transformed from support facilities to profit centers” (http://hotel-online.com)
The spas have always been aimed primarily at those seeking a specialized regime of health, fitness and pampering. Spas have always offered amenities and treatments such as massages and other sorts of healing practices. Typical spa facilities range from swimming pools, saunas, whirlpools to massage rooms. In the more high class hotels, the guests are usually provided with such amenities as bathrobes, bath towels, sandals, shampoos, soaps and conditioners to portray the idea of luxury and pampering.
History of Spas
The three letter word ‘SPA’ was previously an abbreviation of the latin words ‘salus per aquam’ meaning ‘health from water’. Although it is not absolutely clear as to when the concept of the spa was invented, a historical report quotes that “during the reign of Caesar Augustus from 27 B.C. to 14 A.D., there were approximately 170 baths throughout Rome”. (history) Ironically enough, it also seems that the word Spa may have originated from the small Belgian village where the Romans discovered small hot springs in which the soldiers used to heal their wounds and aches after battle. “By 43 A.D., the Roman public, but also many other ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Minoans, and the Greeks began to view baths as a way of providing rest, relaxation, and solace to all people, not just those weary of war”.(history) This was not only the case with the Romans.…
