2014 wellness trends

Spafinder Wellness 365 has released its annual report of the top 10 spa and wellness trends worldwide. The report is based on ongoing surveys of the 20,000-plus spa, wellness and beauty providers. My personal pick of their top five global spa and wellness trends for 2014 include:

Healthy hotels: In 2014 “healthy hotels” will become a megatrend fulfilling the demand for restorative travel and helping people stay well on the road. Look for hotels to move from healthy as a marketing differentiator to deeper, more multi-faceted and comprehensive programming.

Suspending gravity: There are more weightless stress and mind-melting flotation tanks, chambers and pools at spas. On the fitness front, there is a global craze for aerial and anti-gravity classes and yoga along with new equipment like anti-gravity treadmills.

Natural beauty meets social media: With the growing popularity of social media and “selfies,” people are expected to look their best 24/7 — without the benefit of makeup and blowouts. In 2014, a new clean-beauty era takes shape focusing on the natural and introducing a high-tech, low-risk beauty. Spas will promote this via organic products, science and technology intersecting to deliver results with minimal downtime that are seemingly produced by nature.

Scent with intent: As aromatherapy plays a greater role in the treatment of physical and mental issues, spas have been motivated to re-imagine their approach to craft aromatherapies with intended effects. Spas are now moving away from the generically pleasant treatments and working in tandem with botanists and digital technology to improve effectiveness.

Urban wellness retreats: Look for exciting movement on the destination spa front. A distinct sub-trend is the emerging urban wellness retreat. More destination spas will be reachable by car and train.

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What does the Luxury Traveler want?

A survey of more than 1,600 global, discerning travelers conducted by luxury travel website Luxury Link reveals that by no means do the rich want to pay for Wi-Fi. “Must-have” hotel amenities for 2014 include free Wi-Fi (75.7% of respondents), early check-in/late check-out (53.6%) and free daily breakfasts (47.1%).

Croatia and Portugal were tabbed as up-and-coming destinations for 2014, while adventurous and foodie-focused vacations are trending higher, as well. These high-end travelers will not be sitting idle during their 2014 vacations as 46.3% plan to incorporate adventures such as hiking, sailing or scuba-diving into their trips, while 40.7% are foodie-focused, centering travel around fine dining / cooking classes.

It is about time that Indian Hotels stop charging for Wi-Fi and look at how they can offer the luxury traveler safe adventure options in and around Indian resort destinations. With the tremendous cuisine India has to offer, the possibilities are endless.

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Re-imagining the ‘Meetings’ experience

After speaking with customers and analyzing the more than 40,000 meetings hosted at Marriott’s hotels yearly, seven purposes for meetings emerged: Celebrate, Decide, Educate, Ideate, Network, Produce and Promote.

Rather than focusing just on dates, rates and room layouts, Meetings Imagined hones in on the specific purpose of the meeting to create and design a more engaging experience. While others may focus on just meeting logistics, Marriott is reimagining the experience for the next generation with its innovative concept that infuses a more sophisticated approach based on objectives and outcomes

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The importance of Listening

There are four ways in which we communicate viz. reading, writing, speaking and listening. All of us use the above skills on a day-to-day basis. During our school and college days which skills were predominantly tested? Our competency was predominantly tested on the way we scored marks during the examinations. The marks, the grade etc. depended on what we wrote during the examination. The writing skills depended upon the way we read and understood a particular subject. Some of us had to answer the Viva Voce or Orals wherein our speaking skills in answering the questions were tested. Later on as we planned to enter a professional life, we attended interviews. In short, our skills in reading writing and speaking were predominantly tested.

But then why so much fuss about listening? We have been listening to our parents, our teachers, our bosses, our friends etc. all along. Then do we really need to know what listening skills are all about?

Hearing is involuntary. As students, when a minimum of 70% attendance was compulsory to qualify for the examination, did we really listen to all the lecturers? Or were we physically present while mentally absent? Listening is voluntary where our mind plays an active role and thus can be termed as hearing with an attentive mind.

Empathic Listening is the highest and the most effective form of listening. The listener not only responds to the words and actions of the speaker, but also understands the feelings beneath the words/actions/body language. Empathic listening is listening with an intent to understand, where the listener gets inside the other person’s frame of reference and sees the world the way the other person sees it.

For example, a guest who enters a lounge bar may have a reality of how he may quench his need for a hot brew and a light snack to tickle his taste buds. However the Lounge captain may look at this guest as just another ‘bill’ and how his order can help him towards his revenue objective.

If the Lounge captain is preoccupied with his operating reality without bothering about that of the guest, the communication may not be effective and he may try to push high-end beverages to the guest. On the contrary if he is able to look from the guest’s perspective, the Lounge Captain may fully understood the guest’s need for a coffee and light snack – thus paving his way towards an effective relationship.

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Travel Trends 2014

Luxury travel agent network Virtuoso has released its annual trend report suggesting that while multigenerational family travel remains the top trend, active and adventure travel is the dominant trend predicted for all travelers in 2014, especially in more exotic destinations.

The 2014 Luxe Report also found that the rise in longer trips (eight days and longer) to international destinations held steady from 2013, and suggests that when necessary, travelers are willing to book lower room categories to stay in nicer hotels. Italy continues its reign as the top destination for international travel in 2014, followed by South Africa, France and Australia. This year, New Zealand makes an appearance on the list as well. Italy remained the chart-topper for families traveling in 2014, with England, Hawaii, Costa Rica and Mexico rounding out the list.

As in past reports, the motivation behind high-end travel continues to be seeking authentic experiences, rest and relaxation and spending time or reconnecting with loved ones. Re-discovering previously visited destinations and exploring new destinations were new additions to the list this year. Not surprisingly, the list mirrored the most popular destinations for romantic travel, which continue to be Italy, French Polynesia, Bali and France. This year the Maldives joined the list of exotic locations.

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Upselling or Overkill?

On Christmas eve, I visited a popular seafood restaurant in Mumbai along with friends. Known for its popular seafood dishes and fresh fruits de mer, we were  looking forward to a culinary delight. What irked me however was the intention to upsell amongst all service staff. Right from the beginning, from the order for mineral water to the starters and the main course through dessert, there were a plethora of upselling techniques being used. Dishes not on the menu were being recommended, tiger prawns instead of king prawns were recommended, the catch of the day was shoved into our faces and so the evening wore on…

While the meal was a delight, the upselling did leave a poor taste in my mouth and this was aggravated when the basics of service were not being followed (e.g. ladies were not being served first on the table).

Where does operational training draw a line? Is it not more important for the service staff to know how to please a guest rather than killing the golden goose? I for one will not want to go to this restaurant again!

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Not now Darling…

Procrastination is usually a deep rooted habit, stemming from a fear of failure, apprehension, anger, hostility laziness or a general lack of interest. We can change our habits provided we use the right system. In any task, the prompt first step is important, however difficult or annoying it may be.

The tendency to postpone things is called procrastination. How many of us get into New Year resolutions like daily exercise, quitting smoking, writing a diary etc.? Quite often this resolution does not last for more than a week. We need to match tasks to our level and deal with procrastination head-on by focusing on starting rather than finishing, looking for constructive criticism (aka critique) and by being decisive and setting priorities.

Do not try to do too much too quickly. First force yourself right now, to do one thing that earlier you have been putting off.

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Strive for Excellence

There is a difference between striving for excellence and striving for perfection. The first is attainable, gratifying and healthy whereas the second is often difficult to attain, frustrating, nerve wracking and results in time-wastage and stress.

Ask yourself what would happen if I do not do those activities aimed at perfection at all? If you are brutally honest with yourself, for some the answers may be ‘nothing would happen’. Peter Drucker says, ‘I have yet to see an executive regardless or rank or station who could not consign something like a quarter of the demands on his time to the waste paper basket without anybody noticing their disappearance’.

Learn to decline tactfully but firmly every request that does not contribute to your goal of striving for excellence. If you point out that your motivation is not to get out of work but to save your time to do a better job on the really important things, you will have a good chance of avoiding non-productive tasks.

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Yardstick of Success

A person who contributes to an organization or team is always more effective. Generally, managers focus on efforts and also on displaying their authority downwards. This is the age of specialists. Each executive first needs to think of the one quality he/she has at which he/she is extremely good at and which nobody can do better to produce exceptional results?

Vijay, VP-Operations of budget Hotel chain was at the no. 2 position, next to the CEO for around 20 years. The CEO a much younger person than Vijay was quite an aggressive person, a taskmaster. The sudden demise of the CEO made the board promote the VP Operations to the top slot. Vijay, now the new CEO was quite unprepared for the job as it came on too suddenly.

While he was taking the charge of the situation he asked himself the question, “What is it that I can do exceptionally well? How can I contribute? The answer that he received after careful introspection was that his tenure as a CEO was not to be more than 3 years as he was 55 years old. The only way he could make the difference was by developing people under him.

From then on every afternoon for one hour, he would take out personal files of his subordinates and individually discuss their strengths and opportunities for improvement and the action-plan they should make for themselves so as to rise within the organization. He would spend time counseling and guiding them, using all his many years of experience in the industry.Within three years he showed phenomenal growth and also developed a team of highly effective managers.

Instead of focusing on efforts can we focus on results? Rather than keeping a close eye on how our subordinates function, can we look further where results need to be obtained? That is the true yardstick of success!

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Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

What does it take to be effective? Intelligence, Imagination or Knowledge? Perhaps all the three factors may be necessary to some extent for making us effective but then again all these three may not guarantee that one becomes effective by having these qualities.

To look at the two aspects of productivity, efficiency & effectiveness, consider a worker in a laundry department handling the operation of a calendar machine. His productivity is decided by the number of linen iron-rolled in a shift. He has been given clear instructions on what to do. His efficiency is decided by doing his task correctly. However in the case of a knowledge worker, things are quite different. A knowledge worker is the one who puts to use what is between his two ears. While a manual worker puts to use the skills he has in his hands, an executive is the one who not only does what is being told to him, but anticipates what is expected of him and makes the right decisions.

Consider a kitchen where the chef is extremely skilled. A dish prepared and served to the guest on time piping hot, is a culinary delight, only for the guest to discover half-way through his meal, a strand of scrubber wire (used by the kitchen steward to clean the pan earlier, on which the dish was cooked in). However skilled this Chef is, however fast the F&B team cooks and serves the dish (i.e., however efficient they are), this process will not be effective. When the guest discovers the foreign object in his plate, he will not be a happy guest. Not only will this lead to dissatisfaction but it will also in some way impact the profitability of the organization.

Knowledge work is not only defined by quantity or by costs, but it is also decided by the results one produces. An effective executive is a knowledge worker who takes the right decisions thus making a contribution to his organization. He has to plan, organize, motivate, and integrate to obtain the desired results.

Thus efficiency is about doing things right while effectiveness is about doing the right things!

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