I was walking past hydrohealing Spa in Notting Hill, and spotted our Wahanda Spa Voucher sticker in 
the window.
Always good to see!
hydrohealing just joined as one of the over 300+ venues that accept the Wahanda Voucher, and also have a great offer at the moment: 2 treatments for the price of 1, including facials & massages.
Always nice to see some of the Wahanda Fitness & Spa Voucher window sticker at places.
This one is the Good Vibes Fitzrovia – interestingly there is also an endorsement from Elle Macpherson.
There are four Good Vibes in London.
Ah, also there is a offers for a free introductory power plate & Pilates sessions
Late Saturday night I was walking past Scin Spa in Notting Hill, London and spotted one of our Wahanda stickers in the window!
"We're always open on Wahanda"
We created various “We are always open on Wahanda” for all of our partners who accept the Wahanda fitness & spa voucher, which includes over 300 spas, salons, gyms, yoga & pilates studios, clinics, etc.
Its always good to have a bit of free organic advertising, and hopefully we will see more stickers in windows in the coming months. We got the idea from the likes of TimeOut, Qype, Google Local, etc, and think it’s a great way to let passing shoppers know where they can find more information and buy online, even when the venue itself is closed.
No, this is not a new novel I am working on, but actual news, “ripped from the headlines” (for my American readers who require a grandiose lead-in)
Turns out that on Wahanda (my company – a spa, health, beauty & wellness website), we noticed a sudden and pronounced spike in searches of the Lanserhof Spa & Health Centre in Innsbruck, Austria. Now, the Lanserhof is a lovely and luxurious medical destination spa, but still we were wondering why the sudden spike.
68th richest person in the world...
A little bit of digging led us to find this story here about how the heiress to the Quandt BMW family fortune, and Germany’s richest woman (not to mention the 68th richest person in the world), Susanne Klatten, was being blackmailed by a Swiss gigolo who she had met in 2007 at the now infamous Lanserhof Spa & Health Centre.
The ultimate pulling machine
This story actually reminds me of a French movie I saw recently with Audrey Tatou called Priceless or Hors de Prix – great movie.
I am not quite sure who was searching for the Lanserhof on our site – curious consumers, or other would-be gigolos who are perhaps doing some research?
Either way, sometimes truth is definitely stranger than fiction.
The Lanserhof relaxation area (below)
I had the pleasure of meeting Susan Harmsworth at the Conde Nast Traveller Spa Awards just a few weeks back here in London.
These awards (click here to see the winners) are actually sponsored by ESPA, and Susan spoke quite a bit about the state of the industry, much of which is covered in the NY Times article which can be found here. Below is a small excerpt of her interview.
Susan Harmsworth of ESPA - The Queen of the Spa Industry
Q. What are the trends now in the spa business?
A. More people are going to spas in groups. There’s an increase in male treatments, a lot of our city spas are 45 percent men. We’re seeing the medi-spa. In the States, it does noninvasive procedures including fillers, microdermabrasion, Botox. We’re seeing a big increase in spa cuisine.
The swank Mandarin Oriental
Last Monday in London, I was fortunate enough to be (somewhat) invited to the Conde Nast Traveller Magazine Reader Spa Awards which took place at the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge (which has a lovely spa apparently) and was sponsored by ESPA.
What the supplement will look like
Anyway, it was really a fascinating evening. The magazine was expecting over 300 guests, but due to the inclement weather there were only about 100 people, but that made for an intimate evening with lots of Laurent-Perrier champagne for everyone.
Snowing in London
I will write another blog entry detailing the winners which will be featured in the March issue of Conde Nast Traveller in a separate Spa Guide that will come packaged with the monthly edition of the magazine. The goodie bag for the evening was our very own copy of the annual edition.
For those of you who cannot wait, you can see the shortlist of the 2009 nominated spas & winners here on Wahanda:
Sponsored by ESPA
The room itself
