Spa venues feel chill as luxury breaks decline

PAMPERING:Dromoland Castle is in negotiations to take over the luxury Castlemartyr resort in Co Cork, which recently parted company with US management organisation, Capella.

In the spa sector, the downturn's chill winds are blowing colder than your average plunge pool. Pampering is now considered a non-essential luxury.

Add to that a spa experience that varies widely in quality from one establishment to another and you have potential for more closures in the next 12 months, industry insiders say.

John Brennan, proprietor of the Park Hotel in Kenmare, whose Samas spa has won numerous international accolades, says: "The word spa is like the word car - it can be used to describe your basic hatchback all the way up to a Bentley."

Spas can't be done on the cheap. "The operational costs to run a spa are phenomenal," says Brennan. "A therapist can only work on one guest per hour whereas a waiter for example would work with anything from five to 30 people. Spas are a licence to lose money."

The sector may be under pressure, but Monart in Co Wexford is thriving, says manager Mark Browne. "We're a destination spa. People come here to spa, the treatments are not an add-on to the rest of the hotel's facilities."

"To spa" is something that we Irish only started to do in the last decade, with some people in less well-run spas disappointed by their experiences. "The national pastime of spa-hopping seems to have stopped," Browne admits.

The spa industry has had a difficult year, says Keith McCormack, head of business tourism at Fáilte Ireland. The domestic market remains key to the spa sector, but so is the business coming from the UK which needs to be maximised, he says.

"According to Minitel and McCann-Erickson TGI profiling, 1.5 million UK females, aged between 25 and 44 are interested in a spa break," says McCormack. The key driver is also value for money.

Castlemartyr opened in August 2007 and closes on November 19th. Powerscourt Springs closed last month.