Can Cape Cod’s changing consumers support a Manhattan-style day spa?
The Bellezza Day Spa in Falmouth may look like a typical storefront beauty salon, until you walk inside. Its design and layout – as well as its $1 million renovation budget – are more characteristic of Manhattan than Cape Cod.
Can Barnstable County’s demographics support such opulence?
Mother and daughter owners Vera Newell and Melissa Mason are betting it can. Last year, they redesigned a former Puritan clothing store in a 100-year-old building. After three and a half weeks of demolition and 10 trailer-loads of debris removal, Bellezza moved down the block from 352 Main Street to 221 Main Street to re-open their day spa in a more visible location.
One year later, they celebrated their anniversary with annual revenue in excess of $1 million. Mason, who had no previous experience in the beauty or salon business, calls the experience “exhilarating” and “challenging.”
“There are so many components of running this business – clients, products and services, and labor,” she said. “For me, the key is building a high-quality facility from the ground up and constantly improving it. You cannot produce a day spa by adding treatment services to a salon or hotel and hanging up a sign.”
That means attending to every detail. “We want people to peer in from the street and be drawn into an environment designed to soothe, heal and beautify. When clients enter the spa, we want them to experience a beautiful, sanitary space that offers the best services and products.”
It also means keeping an ‘Open for Business’ sign up seven days a week year-round, and late into the evening – 8 p.m. or later by appointment in the summer; 7 p.m. in the winter. Bellezza closes for the day only on Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving.
“You can’t lock out your customers,” said Mason. “People will walk by in the evening after dining out on Main Street and stop in to book future appointments. Last summer, we distributed more than 100 brochures each day to passers-by. If more stores were open more hours, I think we would all benefit.”
When you walk into Bellezza, you do not encounter any workstations. There’s a reception desk and a retail display of some of the beauty industry’s top product lines – Bumble and bumble for hair, Murad for skincare, and Bare Escentuals for natural, mineral-based makeup. They not only sell them, they use them. “We don’t cut corners. While that may make our treatments somewhat more expensive than those offered by hair and nail salons, it also differentiates us,” said Mason.
Bellezza’s customers are 70 percent women and 30 percent men, which reflects national day spa trends. About seven of 10 customers are Cape residents or second-home owners; the other three are seasonal visitors.
In many ways, Bellezza’s eventual success is a test of the changing Cape economy.
“The Best of Boston represents our demographic,” said Melissa. “Our clients, whether they live on- or off-Cape, travel, visit spas and have high standards.”
To meet those standards, the five treatment rooms at Bellezza are private, sound-proofed and equipped with CD players so customers can select their own music. Much of the high-end treatment equipment is portable so that rooms can be adapted to fluctuating demands for types of services, such as massages, skincare and waxing. Mason intends to add two more treatment rooms this year.
“We cater to special needs,” she said, “and maintain a private treatment room for any service we offer. We had a customer whose religion required an all-female environment, and we were able to provide it.”
In the spa world, the greatest challenge is often finding quality staff, and Bellezza is no exception. “It’s tough to find great people who have the highest level of skills and a customer service attitude,” said Mason. “There’s a lot of churn in our industry.”
To deal with churn and other staffing issues, she and Newell have countered many industry practices. “We want to create an environment for career professionals, so we have 25 full-time employees, offer health-care benefits and provide a high level of mentoring, training and education,” said Mason.
Profitability in the day spa business means keeping the treatment rooms full, the hair and nail services flowing and the retail shelves stocked. Industry sources report that while some operations achieve a 25 percent to 30 percent overall return, other day spas operate at the 10 percent to 12 percent level.
Bellezza relies on a word-of-mouth marketing strategy. Mason said part of her business development role is to be active in the community. “We draw our clients from a six-mile radius that includes Mashpee, Osterville, Falmouth and Sandwich. I participate in many chamber of commerce, community and nonprofit functions – and meet as many people as I can.”
Her advertising strategy includes developing the Bellezza Web site, advertising in Yellow Pages and running selected print and radio ads. On the public relations front, Melissa writes beauty and spa articles and pitches to magazines. Write-ups on the Bellezza Day Spa have appeared in the Best of Boston and the Boston Herald as well as the Cape Cod Times.
Bellezza’s model for an upscale operation reflects the national dynamic for day spas. The International Spa Association reports there are more than 12,100 spas in the country, and seven of every 10 are day spas. Annually, 25.6 million people (11 percent of the U.S. population) visit a day spa.
Day spa revenue now exceeds $11.6 billion annually, outpacing many other segments of the hospitality/leisure industry. In an industry study, ISPA notes that day spa revenue is larger than that generated by “theme parks, box offices and ski resorts.”
So who’s heading for the day spa?
ISPA says day-spa clients are typically upscale, married with no children at home and college educated. More than one-half are 25 to 44 years old.
The national profile aligns well with the demographics of Bellezza’s market area. Cape Cod is experiencing an infusion of pre-retiring and retired baby boomers, an increase in second-home owners and abundant seasonal visitors.
The outlook for the spa industry is rosy, as baby boomers seek strategies to maintain their health and counter the signs of aging. However, ISPA noted that growth in the day spa segment is somewhat less robust than in previous years. Competition is coming from the medical and resort spa segments of the industry. ISPA reported that while day spas are the largest spa segment and account for 49 percent of industry revenue, resort spas are catching up and contribute to 41 percent of industry revenue.
These statistics don’t deter the owners of Bellezza. “Falmouth can sustain us,” said Mason. “It is growing, especially in the female, 40- to 65-year-old demographic. We intend to take bold initiatives to show Cape Cod the advantages of a true high-quality day spa.”
Originally published in the Nov/Dec 2006 issue of Cape Business.
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