HOS302A - Critical Analysis of Challenges in Resort & Spa Management

This essay critically analyzes the challenges faced by the spa and resort industry, including economic crises, talent acquisition, and market competition. It provides solutions such as employee training, incentive programs, and market analysis to address these issues. The essay also explores emerging trends like technology integration and wellness focus, emphasizing the importance of customer experience and strategic location. Ultimately, the report underscores the need for quality service, specialized training, and competitive pricing to achieve a competitive advantage in the market. The growing trends in the spa and resort industry also help in leveraging technology to improve customer experience, focus on wellness comforts, destination promotions, targeting guests through social media platforms and using high tech methodology to gain customers. These trends are used to make difference from other resort available in nearby areas Focusing of wellness of customers is very important as nowadays people look for ways to stay conformable.

HOS302A- Assessment3 Essay Seonmi Pak 00135095T
Challenges in spa and resort industry

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Name: Seonmi Pak
STUDENT ID: 00135095T
Course: HOS302A-
Resort& Spa management
Assessment title: Assessment3- Essay
Lecturer: Rakkitha Kumarage

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Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................1
Discussion.............................................................................................................................................1
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................5
References.............................................................................................................................................6
Challenges in spa and resort industry

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Introduction
There are certain challenges which are faced by the spa and resort industry few of
them are listed below. In this dynamic industry the challenges are right in front of the
company. At times it happens that innovative strategies are adopted at once which might roll
out or get redundant. The ability to anticipate the upcoming trend and to stay ahead of the
edge is a tuff task. In this report our main focus would be on the challenges faced by spa and
resort industry in today’s era. Every individual have high standard of living and are willing to
use the facility provided by these sectors. But there exists various obstacles that violet the
profitable market of the industry. Thus steps are undertaken to improve the quality of product
and services. Maintaining the price of the services is the key concern so that more customers
get indulged in the market.
Discussion
One of the biggest challenges in the spa and resort industry is economic crisis, as the
price of the services offered are very high which is not affordable by common man. The cost
of spa and resort industries is dramatically increasing and one of the reasons behind this is
high maintenance cost (Ayspa, 2018). There are customer who are willing to pay high bugs to
afford luxuries services and in return they get a poor quality service. The reason behind the
poor quality services is there is no marginally cut off price in the industry. Thus the
customers are losing confidence to maintain this ways needed to be adopted to capture more
customers. The growth of any industry directly depends on the number of customers
involved; more number of customers means more profit. Promotions are offered on many
sites so that customers can experiences the services and industry get a chance to grasp ne
customers. The talent becomes another challenge especially when it comes to therapists
(Gupta, et. al, 2015). Earlier unqualified entrepreneurs were managing the spa and the growth
was comparatively slow. There are lot of eccentric resort and hotels which are located in
remote areas and they face difficulty at time of recruiting therapists and training them
involves a huge amount of cost (Kingsbury, 2016). Often at times it happens as if training has
been provided, the cost has been incurred yet the employees are not able to deliver the quality
services. This reduces the overall productivity of the spa and employees are not motivated to
give their 100 per cent. This will also lead to reduction in number of customers as they will
be disappointed and tend to give a negative feedback. At times the performance is acceptable

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but because of some earlier issues the customers tend to choose a particular person (Lo, Wu
& Tsai, 2015). This in turn also leads to decline in the productivity of the particular
employee.
Solution: Having one to one conversations with the employees will give them a sense of
belongingness and they will feel motivate to perform. The employees shall be trained from
the scratch as if they have never worked in the spa before. Set fundamental targets for them.
Make them work for incentives as it will keep them going on to achieve the organisation’s
objectives. Further their individual objectives and goals will get an edge and this helps in
creating a sense of competition among the co employees (Lee, Smith & Pan, 2016).
Management should constantly appreciate the efforts of the employees to give them the
feeling of being considered and taken care (Ahn & Back, 2018). Create a workplace where
the open interaction and communication is possible. Employees shall be involved in decision
making processes. Their ideas shall also be given the weightage. This way it develops a sense
of commitment among employees. The relationship is built on threefold basis between the
owner, customer and employee. One to one counselling can also be an effective option. This
will help in determining the individual goals and they can figure out any variances or lack of
performance. After analysis the necessary measures can be taken to fill the gaps in the
performance. Practical training shall be provided before the customers are attended (Denizci
Guillet & Kucukusta, 2016). This will develop the confidence among the employees and
chances of errors will reduce.
Spa and resort retail products are not getting sold - To maintain a resort there are various
things which need to be taken into consideration. Thus to preserve a good place for spa and
fun various products are made available. Buying new products need expenses but from the
research it was analysed that when clients visit the spa parlours they don’t buy any products
from there. The reason is that service quality is becoming inconsistent and there is no control
management system in spa (Radovic, 2015). Staffs are not working properly because they
are criticized for paying salaries. The reason is that in hospitality industry companies are
gradually increasing finding and they are facing difficulty to attract and retain qualified
candidates that well sell their products by attracting clients.
Solution- The solution to this problem involves first teaching the employees how to promote
the services and products. As when someone visits the resort he/she has no mind-sets thus
anyone can mould them by offering them good quality of services (Sandberg, et. al, 2016).

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Before selling the product it should be important that the seller should love the products
itself. Promoting all the good points of the product helps in grasping customer’s attention
which gets followed by purchasing the product. Apart from that everyone visiting the resort
or spa salon have a high standard of living thus plans should be designed to support the
products and services. Thus to make sure that clients use the products of the resort a proper
training should be given to staff. Additionally as the spa products are not getting sold
strategies are designed to provide them extra benefits like offering additional presents, a good
thankful gesture or making efforts to keep them happy while increase the confidence of
clients and will also increase the chance of re-visit (Kadieva, 2015). The solution to this
problem somewhere depends on the staff who is selling the product, if qualifies sellers are
kept they will sell products in a better way. Thus paying good wages to the staff should not
be comprised as all staff at a spa or resort should know what they are required to recommend
to the clients. The sale of products is directly dependent on the advice given to clients so that
staff should sell the product in a way that it catches the customer’s interest. Other than sell
could be increased by offering them the tools which would help them to sell the products.
Also by offering additional incentives will motivate them to buy products. Encouraging
customers by offering them with promotion gifts will help them to purchase products
(Giritlioglu, Jones & Avcikurt, 2014). Gifts cards help in maintaining the consistency as they
will get discounts on daily basis which would increase the sale of products. Other than just
focusing on selling products it could be seen as fun task were you are offering the basic
services additionally offering clients to buys some unique products.
Competition in the market- Apart from the effect of economic crises, resort and spa industry
are grooming day by day. Many new projects related to spa and resort industry are getting
established. Numbers of service providers are increasing and there is a high competition in
the market. Everyone is offering special combo and discount offer to gather more customers.
Thus it is a difficult task to grasp customers from the market. The spa and resort industry is
extremely competitive but they are facing unique challenges as they attempt to engage more
guests. This could be done by offering them relaxing experience that makes the resort
different from the other challengers in the market. Thus it is necessary for them to design
innovate methods to stand apart from competitors and attract the guests (Wani & Bukhari,
2017). The concern is that now a day’s resort includes all the facilities like spa, luxurious stay
and many outdoor activities. That requires a good investment plus the staffs that can handle

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the guests well. Thus to stand different from the competitors all that matters is customers
experience. The area in which resort is located often defines the number of customers it will
get. The location where the resort is located is directly related to the cost of the resort. Thus
it is challenging to select a good geographical location for the resort and the cost is not that
high (Sonal, 2018). Additionally, many resorts have now provided the experience of spa to
beat the challengers in the market.
Solution- The solution to beat the challengers in the market is first analysing the market,
what are the services offered by different competitors. Finding out the reason how
competitors are getting more customers and what are the special offers provided by them.
After analysing the market area the portfolio needs to be designed that contains the facilities
and amenities that would be offered to the customers (Tfaily, 2017). The services are
designed of better quality or some new ideas are generated that may increase customer
expectation. Apart from offering valuable services it is important to promote their services by
advertising. Social media platform can be used in a best way to let the world know about the
offers. Thus to make the resort or spa centre different from other it is important to select an
entirely different geographical location. As the place where spa is situated drive the
customer’s especially western market can be captured by the environment (Asmaa, et. al,
2014). Other than geographical area while setting the industry it is important to develop
market spas in the area where there are real growth opportunities. The method should be
developed in such a way that customers are captured by offering them interesting offers
which are not available in the market (Alaluf, 2017). Customers can be grasped by providing
them facilities at lower price initially, so that the industry gets long-time customers. Further
to beat competitors annual visiting cards could be made for the customers so that they visit
the spa saloon or resorts annually which would increase the clients. This industry should
focus on quality rather than quantity.

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Conclusion
In this report the entire focus was on the challenges faced by spa and resort industries.
These industries are growing day by day and there are numerous challenges that need to be
beaten in the market. Cost is main issue as to provide services of high quality with low price
are difficult but many solutions have been discussed to grasp customer and increase the sale.
Opening online stores can promote the products and make customers aware about the nee
services. Lack of knowledge among staff in this industry is the reason for their failure. Thus it
is necessary to provide proper training to these staff so that they can work well and capture
more audience. The key concern for making profit among this industry is getting more
audience and this could be done improving the quality of services through specialisation and
an appropriate pricing is undertaken to achieve competitive advantage in the market. There
are few emerging trends in the spa and resort industry like leveraging technology to improve
customer’s experience, focus on wellness comforts, destination promotions, targeting guests
through social media platforms and using high tech methodology to gain customers. These
trends are used to make difference from other resort available in nearby areas Focusing of
wellness of customers is very important as nowadays people look for ways to stay
conformable and healthy. This is possible by using new innovations to get more customers
and provide the, with satisfactory services.

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References
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future study. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 69, 94-101.
Alaluf, Y. B. (2017). “It is all included–without the stress”: exploring the production of
relaxation in Club Med seaside resorts. In Emotions as Commodities (pp. 45-67).
Routledge.
Asmaa'Hasshim, S., Rahman, A. A., Khalid, M. M., & Samad, A. M. (2014). Spatial planning
challenge in influence of traditional Malay house design into future resort design.
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Ayspa. (2018). Industry Experts Reveal Spa Trends, Values and Challenges in
2018. Retrieved from https://www.dayspamagazine.com/spa-trends-2018-values-
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Denizci Guillet, B., & Kucukusta, D. (2016). Spa market segmentation according to customer
preference. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(2),
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Kingsbury, P. (2016). Corporate environmental sustainability: sandals resorts international in
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Lee, H., Smith, S. L., & Pan, C. (2016). Tourism Innovation: Integrating Ginseng into Spa
Development: A Case Study of Sunmore Ginseng Health Spa in Kamloops, BC,
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