The International Spa Association’s sixth Consumer Snapshot Initiative, which focuses on trends and attitudes among consumers to the spa industry, highlights several small but important variances across four major economies – the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) conducted the study for ISPA, and used a representative sample of 4,000 consumers across the four countries. This is the first time the ISPA Foundation has looked at spa consumers outside the US.

The study found subtle differences in the percentage of consumers visiting spas across the countries; in the UK 47 per cent of women and 40 per cent of men had been to a spa in the last 12 months – the highest percentage of any of the countries – while at the lower end, 38 per cent of men and women in Australia had attended a spa.

Despite these numbers, only 20 per cent of spa-goers across the nations visit a facility more than four times a year, suggesting there is plenty of opportunity to grow repeat spa business. Infrequent spa-goers cited high prices as their number one reason for skipping a spa visit.