Spa Executive - December 2021

As we look into the new year, I see good
developments on the horizon. There will be a trend
towards adopting more digital technologies to
simplify processes, enhance the guest experience,
save time and money, and facilitate sustainability
initiatives.
Sustainability is one of the biggest trends we’ll see
in 2022. A lot of efforts related to sustainability
were put on hold over the past two years because
of the pandemic and the sudden ubiquity of
disposable masks, hand sanitizer bottles, and
individually packaged items. Now that we’ve been
living with the changes we’ve had to make for
some time, we’re adapting to a new way of being
and realizing that some of them will be permanent,
or at least long lived.
This means reinstating some of the elements
that were put on hold. In her Spotlight interview
this month, Amanda Frasier, Forbes Travel Guide’s
(FTG) Executive Vice President of Standards &
Ratings, talked about the fact that FTG removed
the requirement for a hotel or spa to offer a buffet
service during the pandemic as a concession to
health and safety concerns. Now, she says, FTG
is bringing that requirement back because it’s
an enhancement to the guest experience, but is
rewriting it with some modifications that better suit
how people now think about communal buffets.
Similarly, sustainability initiatives may look
different in a year or two than they do now, and
we don’t yet know what this might mean. We do
know, however, that some of the practices that
were introduced out of necessity will remain in
place, and that these serve to enhance both health
and safety and sustainability. Virtual intake forms,
online booking, and contactless check-in, checkout,
and payments, for example, help reduce
shared touchpoints and paper waste.
December 2021 Issue • p. 24