Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction

The modern spa era saw spas shift from their ancient medical and spiritual emphasis to today’s corporate model that primarily focuses on beauty, fitness, and wellness. While wellness and relaxation have always been the cornerstones of a spa’s holistic experience, the historical European model had come to emphasize taking the waters and retreating to pastoral and natural setting for weeks and even months at a time. Food was luxurious and abundant, and doctors routinely recommended spas as a way to cleanse and heal the body away from the rigors of everyday urban life.

Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 6.2 | Massage Therapy

Many people associate spa with massage, but may not realize the spectrum of treatments and techniques that term encompasses. 

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Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 6.3 | Types of Massage Therapists

There are scores of massage therapies, based on different needs, techniques, and materials used. Some of the better-known massage therapies are explained here.

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Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 6.4 | Movement Education and Mind-Body Fitness

Part of health and wellness is understanding how one’s body works and how the proper functioning of the body contributes to an overall experience of physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

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Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 6.5 | Hydrotherapy

Virtually everyone has practiced some form of hydrotherapy during their lives, even though they may not have realized there was a name for it. 

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Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 6.6 | Body Treatments

Body treatments include wraps and scrubs that use natural substances to enhance beauty, improve circulation and skin tone, and introduce trace elements into the body through absorption.

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Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 6.7 | Skin Care/Facials

A facial is a skin treatment that generally consists of the following steps: cleansing, steaming, exfoliating, extraction, massaging, treating, and moisturizing. 

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Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 7 | Financial Organization of Spas

This chapter introduces the basic organization and financial realities of operating a spa. It offers knowledge of how a spa is organized financially and how each department functions, either as a revenue or a cost center.

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Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 7.1 | Revenue Centers

The divisions in a spa are categorized as revenue centers and cost centers. Revenue centers generate income for the spa through the sales of services or products to guests/clients.

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Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 7.2 | Cost Centers

The divisions in a spa are categorized as revenue centers and cost centers. Revenue centers generate income for the spa through the sales of services or products to guests/clients.

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Spa: A Comprehensive Introduction | Chapter 7.3 | Putting It All Together

All revenue and costs described in this chapter are recorded on the statement of income, which provides a financial snapshot of the spa. The statement of income shows the total sales by product or service category (massage, skin care, hair, nails, etc.) for a stated period of time, the expenses incurred in generating those sales, and the profit earned or the loss incurred as a result of those activities. The chapter appendix contains sample statements of income for a resort spa and a day spa.

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