Figures released this month show that spa department revenues increased by 8.3 per cent at US hotels in 2011.

PKF-HR's 2012 Trends in the Hotel Spa Industry report indicates a recovery in the sector's fortunes, following a 10.5 per cent decline in hotel spa revenues in 2010.

The beginning of the recovery in 2011 was enjoyed by all types of hotel spas regardless of location, volume of revenue, or size of the facilities.

In general, mid-sized hotel spa operations registered the greatest gains in revenue from 2010 to 2011.

Analysing the data by type of hotel, the PKF-HR report shows similar revenue increases for spas located in both resort (8.4 per cent) and urban (8.2 per cent) hotels.

While total spa department revenue increased 8.3 per cent, when measured on a dollar per occupied hotel guestroom basis, the revenue increase was just 3.3 per cent.

This implies that spa managers benefited more from an increase in the capture of in-house guests, as opposed to a higher spend per guest.

To read more on the PKF survey, see Spa Business Q1 2013 (p40) for a report by Andrea Foster, PKF's vice president and national director for spa and wellness consulting.