Alliance Leisure

Alliance brings affordable spa to the leisure sector

Alliance Leisure has launched a spa partnership arm, bringing affordable but luxury spa services to the local authority market.

Alliance Spa has delivered their first project for Pendle Leisure Trust, a £2 million development that will take the Wavelengths Centre in Nelson from a traditional sports centre to a more holistic wellness centre. Plans include a new fitness suite and spa housing a range of treatment and therapy rooms as well as sauna, steam and hydrotherapy areas.

Alliance Spa believes the public sector is still unsure of the relevance of spa to its membership, but says the Alliance Leisure spa partnership will allow local authorities and trusts to offer high quality relaxation and treatment facilities to the masses.

"Spa is in its infancy, just as the fitness market was 10 years ago,” said Berni. “This has lead many local authorities to see spas as something that’s glamorous and expensive, that’s not for their client base, but this doesn’t have to be the case."

As well as part funding the Wavelengths project, Alliance Leisure advised on design and operations and identified how the spa can have far reaching benefits across all the Trust’s sites in the region.

Around 70% of common ailments are stress related and many of these could be treatable in a spa. This creates a massive opportunity for leisure centres to work with their local Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and GPs for referral.

The Wavelength's proposals were then backed up by a Leisure-net Solutions survey to find out what facilities the surrounding community would like to see on offer at its local leisure centre. The street-FocusTM survey concluded that ‘if this new complex provided facilities for the whole family to both be active and to relax, with appropriate childcare facilities, and was all provided at an affordable cost, it would encourage them to be more active and make more time to relax.'

"In many European countries people are prescribed water therapies – it’s not seen as something reserved for an elite few. We want spa to be recognised as something that’s for everyone in the UK too, whether it’s medicinal, for sport or general well being. We truly believe the spa programme will aid attrition for Pendle Leisure Trust."

Alliance Spa mirrors the company’s fitness partnership programme and works on a performance related income share basis. The partnership can include everything from funding, architecture, interior design and building work, to specialist spa equipment, recruitment, staff training and strategic branding and marketing, as well as operational and management contracts.

Each centre will be offered a selection of design and operational choices, bespoke to the site’s size and demographics. These include therapeutic and revitalising treatments such as saunarium, foot spa, rasul, aroma and Chakra massage. Then, from completion, Alliance Spa bears all the costs up front with the centre only paying commission when membership payments exceed an agreed threshold.

Alliance Spa works with Thalgo marine based treatments, Perron Rigot pain-free waxing, Gerrard International products including Jessica nails and www.hairandbeautyjobs.com for staff recruitment.