“It was one of those times when everything just fell into place,” says Anna Bjurstam of her appointment to head up spa and wellness as Six Senses in February. As a co-founder of Swedish-based consultancy Raison d’Etre (see SB06/3 p66), which she took full ownership of in 2011, Bjurstam has been opening and operating spas for companies like Four Seasons and Amanresorts for 14 years. And, interestingly, one of her first clients was Six Senses. “Raison d’Etre developed the first spa concept for Six Senses for Soneva Fushi in the Maldives,” she says. “Spas were beauty focused so we went the opposite way and created a holistic spa with yoga, meditation, healing therapies, complementary medicine experts and natural products without parabens. It’s common sense today, but in 1998 it was really different.”
Raison d’Etre managed the spa for a just over year before the owners took it in-house, founded Six Senses, and rolled out the concept. Working with the brand once more she says is “kind of a homecoming”. The move made sense. “I knew the brand and I’d worked with Neil the CEO (see p30), on the Baccarat spa brand (see p18) at Starwood Capital. I’d also just hired Annika Jackson for Raison d’Etre who’d returned home to Sweden from the US where she’d developed the spa concept for Mii amo. I knew she was managing director material, so when I got the offer from Six Senses it was a perfect chance to promote her.”
Systems and streamlining The aim is for Bjurstam to spend the majority of time (80 per cent) on Six Senses, while still keeping an eye on Raison d’Etre. She’ll have a team of 15 people, with around 10 direct reports, to oversee its 28 spas.
“I had a brilliant handover from Samir Patel [Six Senses previous MD of spas] to get an understanding of all the different types of spas – we have city, gaming and airport lounge spas as well as those in resorts,” she says. “Now I’ve started visiting the properties to speak with the owners and look at what systems are already in place.
“At Raison d’Etre we have a very structured approach to building, opening and operating a spa, but it’s more organic at Six Senses. So my main priority is to look at systems, structures and strategies that we need to put in place; what corporate direction owners need, and how we support them in terms of marketing, training and quality management systems.”
One big change already made is to amalgamate the resort and spa branches which were previously separate entities with their own HR and marketing departments. “That was a big step and its already working much better,” she says. She’s also brought in Michael Clarke, the operations director at Raison d’Etre, as her wing man to help build up an even slicker division.
Another focus has been product and treatment streamlining. “We have 29 spas and 25 product houses,” says Bjurstam. “That’s the difficulty with licensing – there isn’t one brand that can be used everywhere in the world and we always try to have a local line too.” They will, however, look to consolidate suppliers but will stick with favourites such as Subtle Energies, an Australian ayurveda aromatherapy company.
Realising that about half of all treatments were sold less than 1 per cent of the time, menu engineering has been key too. “We’ve taken off the poor sellers and our aim is to focus on holistic massage and other core treatments and, of course, consistency. We’re also restructuring the whole menu as they’ve been ‘creatively’ made and you had to be a private investigator to find a facial!”
New direction Aside from honing the existing offering, Bjurstam and her team will be introducing some new concepts such as wellness packages which are focused around yoga. “Yoga has always been core at Six Senses and we already have advanced yoga teachers in 80 per cent of our locations, so we’ll use them to guide guests through various wellness programmes including yoga and treatments, yoga and posture, yoga and nutrition and even yoga and detox with yogic cleansing drinks to help clear the system.
“Pioneering wellness is one of our core values and in my mind that’s about expertise and guidance and – most importantly – diagnosis because you can have the most advanced things but if you don’t individualise them you won’t help people. We’re looking into possible measuring tools at the moment such as biometric body scans, blood tests and thermographic cameras which detect inflammations in the body.”
Advanced beauty will be another strand. “We’re going to look at high tech and high touch because there’s so much technology out there that isn’t invasive,” she says. “We’d never do botox, but there’s a lot of results orientated wellness technology. I’ve found a machine by Nannic which [using electrocurrents and radiofrequency] is the only one to work on the whole body. You can work on the face, or it has grades of greater frequency to stimulate lymphatic drainage. And eventually the aim will be to introduce a Six Senses anti-ageing clinic with diagnostics, again, coupled with anti-ageing experts to focus on lifestyle and nutrition in terms of ageing.”
Lighting lights One of the biggest obstacles Bjurstam foresees is doing too many things at once and not taking a strategic approach to changes. She says: “I was preaching to the spa team last week about Abraham Lincoln’s mantra: ‘If I had 8 hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend 6 hours sharpening my axe,’, so we’re going to look at what really needs to be done before we take action.”
But, she’s got her sights set on turning things around with her overall goal being to ‘light lights’ which is her same mission at Raison d’Etre. “I’m philanthropic. I believe that this is a hotel and spa company that can make people reconnect with themselves and therefore with the world in a small way to do the right thing.”
Read more from this issue of Spa Business magazine
Ask an expert: Cancer
The number of cancer sufferers and survivors is growing. How can spas cater for them? Kath Hudson reports
Interview: Neil Jacobs
Six Senses’ new CEO reveals the group’s spa strategy and development plans
Profile: Anna Bjurstam
The new vice president of spa and wellness at Six Senses will oversee 28 facilities worldwide
Hotel spa: Palace pampering
A E100m refurbishment of Paris’ Hôtel Le Bristol attracted footballer David Beckham for a six month-long stay. Julie Cramer pays a visit to its new Spa Le Bristol by La Prairie which is becoming a healthy profit centre
Promotional feature: Design consulting
Implementing a great spa design takes inspiration, patience and discipline, according to Cary Collier, principal of Blu Spas, WTS' strategic partner. In the third of our WTS series, he shares his design philosophy with Spa Business
Research: India's wellness consumers
Leonor Stanton analyses PwC’s latest research profiling Indian wellness consumers – an industry projected to be worth US$18bn in four years’ time
Thermal spa: Hot spot
The Banjaran is Malaysia’s first and only hot springs retreat. Jennifer Harbottle examines the growth strategy
Company profile promotion: QMS Medicosmetics
QMS Medicosmetics' revolutionary skincare system was created by a trauma surgeon from Germany. Here, the company's managing partner explains how the products' unique ingredients and actions are delivering exceptional results in spas worldwide
Hotel spa: Making a debut
Steigenberger Hotels has introduced a flagship spa concept in Frankfurt. Sophie Benge reports
Resort spa: Botanical beauty
The new Spa Botánico at Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve is set in five acres of ‘purification gardens’ and has a plant and herb apothecary
Product news: Product news
Product editor, Kate Corney highlights the latest product and equipment launches from the Spa Business search engine, Spa-Kit.net
Spa: There are so many and it depends on what I want. Mandarin Oriental in New York is a city favourite, while Ayurveda Parkschlösschen in Germany is unbeatable
Treatment: Healing combined with massage from gifted therapists
Book: Right now I’m reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman – really interesting!
Cuisine: Swedish Skagen toast is a winner
Place: Summer in Sweden with the sun shining all night
Season: Spring
Piece of advice: Be humble and think that there’s always more to learn – something I picked up from Björn-Sigurd Johansen, who was the chairman at SATS (the Nordic fitness chain) when I worked there between 1998 to 2000
Who you admire: Andreas Göthberg, the country manager at SATS, who taught me ‘to do the right things and not only do things right’
The holistic menu will be updated with advanced beauty offerings
Yoga has always been a core offering at Six Senses and now Bjurstam plans to create a series of wellness packages based around the discipline
“It was one of those times when everything just fell into place,” says Anna Bjurstam of her appointment to head up spa and wellness as Six Senses in February. As a co-founder of Swedish-based consultancy Raison d’Etre (see SB06/3 p66), which she took full ownership of in 2011, Bjurstam has been opening and operating spas for companies like Four Seasons and Amanresorts for 14 years. And, interestingly, one of her first clients was Six Senses. “Raison d’Etre developed the first spa concept for Six Senses for Soneva Fushi in the Maldives,” she says. “Spas were beauty focused so we went the opposite way and created a holistic spa with yoga, meditation, healing therapies, complementary medicine experts and natural products without parabens. It’s common sense today, but in 1998 it was really different.”
Raison d’Etre managed the spa for a just over year before the owners took it in-house, founded Six Senses, and rolled out the concept. Working with the brand once more she says is “kind of a homecoming”. The move made sense. “I knew the brand and I’d worked with Neil the CEO (see p30), on the Baccarat spa brand (see p18) at Starwood Capital. I’d also just hired Annika Jackson for Raison d’Etre who’d returned home to Sweden from the US where she’d developed the spa concept for Mii amo. I knew she was managing director material, so when I got the offer from Six Senses it was a perfect chance to promote her.”
Systems and streamlining The aim is for Bjurstam to spend the majority of time (80 per cent) on Six Senses, while still keeping an eye on Raison d’Etre. She’ll have a team of 15 people, with around 10 direct reports, to oversee its 28 spas.
“I had a brilliant handover from Samir Patel [Six Senses previous MD of spas] to get an understanding of all the different types of spas – we have city, gaming and airport lounge spas as well as those in resorts,” she says. “Now I’ve started visiting the properties to speak with the owners and look at what systems are already in place.
“At Raison d’Etre we have a very structured approach to building, opening and operating a spa, but it’s more organic at Six Senses. So my main priority is to look at systems, structures and strategies that we need to put in place; what corporate direction owners need, and how we support them in terms of marketing, training and quality management systems.”
One big change already made is to amalgamate the resort and spa branches which were previously separate entities with their own HR and marketing departments. “That was a big step and its already working much better,” she says. She’s also brought in Michael Clarke, the operations director at Raison d’Etre, as her wing man to help build up an even slicker division.
Another focus has been product and treatment streamlining. “We have 29 spas and 25 product houses,” says Bjurstam. “That’s the difficulty with licensing – there isn’t one brand that can be used everywhere in the world and we always try to have a local line too.” They will, however, look to consolidate suppliers but will stick with favourites such as Subtle Energies, an Australian ayurveda aromatherapy company.
Realising that about half of all treatments were sold less than 1 per cent of the time, menu engineering has been key too. “We’ve taken off the poor sellers and our aim is to focus on holistic massage and other core treatments and, of course, consistency. We’re also restructuring the whole menu as they’ve been ‘creatively’ made and you had to be a private investigator to find a facial!”
New direction Aside from honing the existing offering, Bjurstam and her team will be introducing some new concepts such as wellness packages which are focused around yoga. “Yoga has always been core at Six Senses and we already have advanced yoga teachers in 80 per cent of our locations, so we’ll use them to guide guests through various wellness programmes including yoga and treatments, yoga and posture, yoga and nutrition and even yoga and detox with yogic cleansing drinks to help clear the system.
“Pioneering wellness is one of our core values and in my mind that’s about expertise and guidance and – most importantly – diagnosis because you can have the most advanced things but if you don’t individualise them you won’t help people. We’re looking into possible measuring tools at the moment such as biometric body scans, blood tests and thermographic cameras which detect inflammations in the body.”
Advanced beauty will be another strand. “We’re going to look at high tech and high touch because there’s so much technology out there that isn’t invasive,” she says. “We’d never do botox, but there’s a lot of results orientated wellness technology. I’ve found a machine by Nannic which [using electrocurrents and radiofrequency] is the only one to work on the whole body. You can work on the face, or it has grades of greater frequency to stimulate lymphatic drainage. And eventually the aim will be to introduce a Six Senses anti-ageing clinic with diagnostics, again, coupled with anti-ageing experts to focus on lifestyle and nutrition in terms of ageing.”
Lighting lights One of the biggest obstacles Bjurstam foresees is doing too many things at once and not taking a strategic approach to changes. She says: “I was preaching to the spa team last week about Abraham Lincoln’s mantra: ‘If I had 8 hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend 6 hours sharpening my axe,’, so we’re going to look at what really needs to be done before we take action.”
But, she’s got her sights set on turning things around with her overall goal being to ‘light lights’ which is her same mission at Raison d’Etre. “I’m philanthropic. I believe that this is a hotel and spa company that can make people reconnect with themselves and therefore with the world in a small way to do the right thing.”
Read more from this issue of Spa Business magazine
Ask an expert: Cancer
The number of cancer sufferers and survivors is growing. How can spas cater for them? Kath Hudson reports
Interview: Neil Jacobs
Six Senses’ new CEO reveals the group’s spa strategy and development plans
Profile: Anna Bjurstam
The new vice president of spa and wellness at Six Senses will oversee 28 facilities worldwide
Hotel spa: Palace pampering
A E100m refurbishment of Paris’ Hôtel Le Bristol attracted footballer David Beckham for a six month-long stay. Julie Cramer pays a visit to its new Spa Le Bristol by La Prairie which is becoming a healthy profit centre
Promotional feature: Design consulting
Implementing a great spa design takes inspiration, patience and discipline, according to Cary Collier, principal of Blu Spas, WTS' strategic partner. In the third of our WTS series, he shares his design philosophy with Spa Business
Research: India's wellness consumers
Leonor Stanton analyses PwC’s latest research profiling Indian wellness consumers – an industry projected to be worth US$18bn in four years’ time
Thermal spa: Hot spot
The Banjaran is Malaysia’s first and only hot springs retreat. Jennifer Harbottle examines the growth strategy
Company profile promotion: QMS Medicosmetics
QMS Medicosmetics' revolutionary skincare system was created by a trauma surgeon from Germany. Here, the company's managing partner explains how the products' unique ingredients and actions are delivering exceptional results in spas worldwide
Hotel spa: Making a debut
Steigenberger Hotels has introduced a flagship spa concept in Frankfurt. Sophie Benge reports
Resort spa: Botanical beauty
The new Spa Botánico at Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve is set in five acres of ‘purification gardens’ and has a plant and herb apothecary
Product news: Product news
Product editor, Kate Corney highlights the latest product and equipment launches from the Spa Business search engine, Spa-Kit.net
Spa: There are so many and it depends on what I want. Mandarin Oriental in New York is a city favourite, while Ayurveda Parkschlösschen in Germany is unbeatable
Treatment: Healing combined with massage from gifted therapists
Book: Right now I’m reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman – really interesting!
Cuisine: Swedish Skagen toast is a winner
Place: Summer in Sweden with the sun shining all night
Season: Spring
Piece of advice: Be humble and think that there’s always more to learn – something I picked up from Björn-Sigurd Johansen, who was the chairman at SATS (the Nordic fitness chain) when I worked there between 1998 to 2000
Who you admire: Andreas Göthberg, the country manager at SATS, who taught me ‘to do the right things and not only do things right’
The holistic menu will be updated with advanced beauty offerings
Yoga has always been a core offering at Six Senses and now Bjurstam plans to create a series of wellness packages based around the discipline
Hotel de France, located on the British Isle of Jersey, has created a wellness retreat package
that includes a hot yoga session that will take place in Jersey Zoo’s butterfly sanctuary.
The Ritz-Carlton, Langkawi, in Malaysia, has revealed a schedule for Global Wellness Day
(GWD) that includes guided rainforest walks, mindful movement and guided coastal meditation
experiences.
Longevitix, a clinical platform for preventive and longevity medicine, has launched its AI-
powered intelligence system to help physicians deliver continuous, personalised longevity-
focused care at scale.
Atmantan Wellness Centre, an integrative wellness destination in Mulshi, near Pune in India, is
expanding its portfolio by adding a new centre in Hyderabad that will launch between 2028 and
2029.
A recent survey by the UK Spa Association (UKSA) into the industry’s approach to cancer care
has revealed that almost half of participating respondents (46 per cent) are unaware that
cancer is a disability and guests with a cancer diagnosis must be given
Mexican operator, Solmar Hotels and Resorts, is hosting a series of events in celebration of
Global Wellness Day, including a Temazcal ceremony at its Playa Grande Resort and Spa in Los
Cabos.
Mandarin Oriental has announced a standalone residence brand, Mansions, which will debut at
Emirates Palace, Mandarin Oriental Mansions, Abu Dhabi, in 2029.
Four Seasons Resort The Nam Hai in Hoi An, Vietnam, has put together a Global Wellness Day
(GWD) agenda with activations rooted in nature and shaped by four pillars of Joy – in
alignment with the day’s theme #JoyMagenta.
