The UK Spa Association demonstrated its benchmarking tool live at a networking event at Center Parcs Woburn Forest last week. The tool was launched earlier this year.

Following the Global Spa & Wellness Summit’s identification of international key performance indicators (KPIs) for the spa industry in 2010, the UK Spa Association has come up with a national benchmarking tool.

The KPIs covered inthe benchmarking system – which is free for UK Spa Association members – include the month’s revenue per treatment room per hour, average revenue per treatment, percentage treatment room utilisation, percentage therapist utilisation, and percentage retail sales conversion.

Spa owners input the facility’s data into an online database, identifying their business as a destination spa, hotel spa or day spa. The number of treatment rooms in the spa, opening times and location is recorded. Then owners can select which spas they want to benchmark their business against.

“In terms of data protection, the user sees only their own data,” said Alex De Carvalho, vice chair of the association in charge of market intelligence. “The database has been developed, and will be maintained, independently by a software company called Sofality.”

Eighty spas have signed up to the system so far, including Calcot Manor, Ribby Hall and The Grove. The plan, according to the UK Spa Association’s chairman Charlie Thompson, is to attract 300-350 members to sign up to the tool, to provide valuable comparisons.

“The opportunity to sign up to this benchmarking tool is a unique proposition for members because they cannot otherwise create a coherent comparison between competing businesses via a trusted body,” said Thompson.

The Association already has a tie-up with the Dutch Spa & Wellness Association, according to Thompson, which will allow for cross-comparison opportunities once enough UK spas have signed up to the benchmarking tool.

Thompson also announced that the Association’s new code of ethics and best practice will be revealed in the next quarter. He also highlighted the upcoming National Spa Week, encouraging spa owners to join up to the scheme which sees a percentage of profits being donated to the MacMillan Cancer Support. There were 60-70 spas involved in the scheme last year.

Monthly educational webinars will also be available on the UK Spa Association’s website on the second Tuesday of every month at 16:30pm GMT. Forthcoming session topics include how to provide secure bookings through third party agents, the value of benchmarking and a guide to recruitment.

Also at the networking event, Don Camilleri, director of construction for Center Parcs, gave a speech detailing the creation of the latest multi-sensory Aqua Sana spa at Center Parcs Woburn Forest. He also revealed exclusively to Spa Opportunities that he has started his own hospitality consultancy firm, Hospitality and Leisure Concepts, and will remain an advisor for Center Parcs in future.