Susie Ellis has the enviable lifestyle of spa-ing once a week. But unlike normal spa goers, she can’t just lie back and enjoy it all….she’s too busy taking mental notes so that she can provide valuable information on the spa to readers on her website or her blog!
As President of the world’s largest spa marketing and media research company SpaFinder Inc., Susie Ellis is credited with transforming the spa industry from its niche market segment to the mega industry in is today. Recognised as a leading authority on the global spa industry, she is a respected analyst who presents the global spa industry trends yearly to a professional audience who plan their growth strategies on that basis. She is a frequent invitee to spa events as international speaker and is the Founding Board member of the Global Spa Summit (GSS). Author of the widely read industry blog Susie’s Spa Blog, Ellis is credited with forecasting numerous industry “mega-trends” that have taken hold in spas around the world.
In an exclusive interview, Susie Ellis tells Spa Mantra about the evolution and phenomenal success of SpaFinder.
1. What has made SpaFinder the most popular website in the world for those seeking a spa treatment/ vacation?
Several things are key:
We have one laser-like focus, and that is to connect consumers with spas. We bring customers to spas and spas to customers. And we do that really well.
When we launched 25 years ago, the modern spa industry was really in its infancy, we have amassed a unique amount of expertise and brand recognition since then.
We really do know the spa industry extremely well because of the many ways we work with consumers, spas, and travel agents. And we invest in continuing to stay on top of (and hopefully ahead of) industry trends.
The gift card program is extremely popular.
Our brand recognition is very high in North America, the UK and Japan, and is becoming more widely known in other parts of the world.
2. How has your offering evolved over these years?
SpaFinder started out in 1987 as a small specialty (spa-focused) travel agency with just three agents. We then launched a “catalogue” that eventually evolved into our yearly SpaFinder directory. In 1990, when my husband and I purchased the company, we turned the focus to the Internet and began building partnerships with spas to bring them more exposure and business – and our online platform showcased spas to lots of customers. After a few years we closed down the travel agency part of the company because the Internet was delivering a higher volume of customers than one physical agency could manage on its own. Next, we added the gift card program. We continue to introduce innovative and creative marketing initiatives into the market: for instance, SpaWish, Wellness Week, and SpaRahRah are good examples. We work with corporations now, and are now introducing an Employee Wellness product. We have a dedicated research team that monitors trends and regularly surveys our various stakeholders. Along with eight other industry leaders, we launched the Global Spa Summit. Today, have almost 100 employees at our headquarters in New York City.
3. Who is a spa customer today? What does he/she seek?
The spa customer of “yesterday” (when I started in the spa industry over 30 years ago) was primarily either the affluent person that visited thermal baths (in Europe) for revitalization or the affluent female in the U.S., whose husband, typically, afforded her the luxury of a spa vacation. How that has changed. Today’s spa customer is anyone and everyone: men, women, teens, pre-teens, babies, couples, families, singles, groups – both corporate and private. There is a spa at just about every price-point, so spa going has expanded far beyond the affluent women, it’s far more about health and wellness, it’s expanded beyond women.
The number one reason people go to spas is to relax and de-stress. Another way of looking at it is that spa experiences today focus on revitalizing people, so that they can live their best life.
4. How has that changed in the last 5 years?
Please see answer above
There has also been a major, ongoing shift from a focus on pampering to a focus on wellness in the past 5 years. And as we noted in SpaFinder’s Trend Report for 2011, with an aging global population, in addition to overall wellness, pain relief is beginning to be a major component of what many spa-goers seek in their spa experience.
Where do I get started on my FAQ page? When I built my first website, I had no idea even what a faq was…..So I skipped that page! Now that I know what it is…..I highly recommend you not to skip your Frequently Asked Questions page! This page is directed to help your vistors at your website. Many website viewers end up having questions about the website they are visiting.
On your frequently asked questions (FAQ) page, you want to stop and think about what your questions or concerns might be when visiting your website. Think of what your website is about and imagine you knew nothing about it. There should be some questions that arise from that thought. You should now think about what question is more important to answer? Put this question and answer at the top of your list. Post the question and then the answer. Continue reading this page for a good example.
Officelive website users have the faq page layout ready for them. They just delete the text provided and insert their own questions and answers. Microsoft officelive has provided a wonderful set of questions that website users have when creating their faq pages.
Privacy policy
Welcome to www.spamantra.in (the “Site”), a website owned and controlled by C&E Pvt. Ltd (“C&E”, “we”, “us”, or “our”). We operate the Site, and C&E products and services made available through the Site (collectively the “Services”), which make link creation in copied and pasted content effortless to readers and, in certain cases, enables easier searches from copied content. We provide this privacy policy to let you know what information we collect, and how we use it, share it and protect it.
Privacy Practices for Visitors to the Spa Mantra Site
(a) The information we gather and how we use it: The Site is primarily directed to Publishers, although we welcome End Users who want to know more about our Services. We do not collect any PII from End Users through the provision of our services. When a Publisher signs up for our site, we will collect the Publisher’s e-mail address to enable us to offer the service. A single e-mail address from the Publisher is the only Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) that we collect and we do this only to enable login to the site and to enable us to contact the Publishers that use our Services.
(b) Controlling our use of Publisher Login Information: If you have provided your email address when registering for our Site, you may modify that information at any time by visiting your account settings (https://id.C&E.com/account/account_settings). You can also delete your account at any time. You can opt out of receiving certain email communications from the Site by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of each email.
(c) Information Sharing: We will use a Publisher email address provided at login exclusively as follows:
With third parties if we have a good faith belief that access, use, or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy applicable law, regulation, legal process or an enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce the applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of C&E, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.
In the event we go through a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, the Publisher’s email address may be among the assets transferred.
Privacy Practices for End Users Who Visit Publisher Sites that have C&E Services Installed
We do not collect any PII from End Users who visit Publisher Sites.
We operate the Services, which make link creation in copied and pasted content effortless to readers and, in certain cases, which make searches from copied content easier. When you, an End User, copy content from a Publisher Site and paste it into another document, the Services that have been installed on the Publisher Site may, at the publishers discretion, automatically append a link back to the original content. When you visit a Publisher Site, we collect certain non-personally identifiable information (“Non-PII”) for use on our platform (the “C&E Platform”). We enable our Publishers to use this information via the Platform for analytics purposes, and we also use some of this information to market our products and services to you and those of third parties we believe may be of interest to you as described below.
(a) The information we gather and how we use it:
PII – We do not collect PII from End Users who visit a Publisher Site.
Non-PII – We collect Non-PII through the provision of Services for use on the C&E Platform. For example, when you visit a web page on a Publisher Site, our server logs may collect your Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time you visited that web page, and the web search that landed you on that web page. We may also collect information regarding what content you copy from the Publisher Site. Also, when you visit a Publisher Site, we will place a cookie onto your computer or other device. “Cookies” are small pieces of information that a website sends to your computer’s web browser while you are viewing a website. We use cookies to improve the quality of our Services, including identifying user preferences and interests and identifying user trends. We also use cookies to help advertisers and publishers serve more relevant ads to users.
(b) Controlling our use of your Non-PII: If you don’t want us to (i) enable C&E-generated links in connection with copied content, or (ii) track your Non-PII, you can opt-out by clicking the Opt Out button on this page. You will need to Opt-Out for each browser you use and have cookies enabled.
(c) Information Sharing: We share Non-PII with other companies or individuals as follows:
We use Non-PII to enable us to provide our Services to our Publisher partners. We also use Non-PII to enable advertisers to serve more relevant advertisements to their audience.
We share any information we have with third parties if we have a good faith belief that disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy applicable law, regulation, legal process or an enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce the applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of C&E, its End Users or the public as required or permitted by law.
In the event we go through a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, we expect that any and all information that we have will be among the assets transferred.
In addition, we may aggregate your Non-PII with the Non-PII of others and share that aggregated information with third parties without restriction.
Information Security and Retention
We take reasonable security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include firewalls and encryption, internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, as well as physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems.
We restrict access to Publisher email addresses to C&E employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to operate, develop or improve our Services. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination, if they fail to meet these obligations. However, we are unable to guarantee that the security measures we take will not be penetrated or compromised or that your information will remain secure under all circumstances.
We retain records of Publisher email addresses for as long as the Publsher maintains its account.
We retain detailed records of End User activity for a maximum of 90 days. Statistical summaries and data aggregations may be kept for longer periods.
Children
We do not knowingly collect or maintain PII from any individuals – especially individuals who are under 13 years of age, and no part of our Site or Services are designed to attract people under the age of 13. Protecting the privacy of children is very important to us. If we obtain knowledge that a user is under the age of 13, we will take steps to remove that user’s data from our databases.
Links to Other Sites
Our Site and Services contain links to, and allow you to share content on, third party websites and services. The fact that we link to a website or service or allow you to share content on them is not an endorsement, authorization or representation that we are affiliated with that third party, nor is it an endorsement of their privacy or information security policies or practices. This privacy policy applies only as provided in the “Scope” section above. Other websites and services follow different rules regarding the use or disclosure of personal information. We encourage you to read the privacy policies or statements of the other websites you visit.
International Users
The Site and Services are hosted in the United States. If you access the Site or Services from the European Union, Asia, or any other region with laws or regulations governing personal data collection, use, and disclosure that differ from United States laws, please be advised that through your continued use of the Site or Services, you are transferring your PII (there is no PII associated with services – we need to alter these sentences) to the United States and you consent to that transfer. Additionally, you understand that your PII may be processed in countries (including the United States) where laws regarding processing PII may be less stringent than in your country.
Questions or Comments?
C&E regularly reviews its compliance with this Privacy Policy. Please feel free to direct any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy by contacting us through this Site, by emailing us at [email protected] or writing to us at:
Privacy
C&E Pvt. Ltd
210 Srikant Chambers
Sion Trombay Road
Chembur, Mumbai
400071
Changes to this Privacy Policy
Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. If you have any additional questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us any time through this Site or by writing to us at the address set forth above.
Cancellation & refund policy
Return Items
If you are not completely satisfied with your purchase, you may be eligible to return the item for a refund.
To return an item, please visit online Order Status for assistance 24 hours a day, or call xxxx-xxxx, Monday – Friday from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., or Saturday – Sunday from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pacific time.
Returns policy
Items that cannot be returned include:
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