Like many industries such as the gaming industry and online shopping, the wellness industry did fairly well during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But this doesn’t mean that the industry came out of 2020 totally unscathed. The pandemic encouraged people to try out telemedicine, at-home fitness equipment and services, and even digital therapy. According to a survey conducted by McKinsey, customers’ usage of telehealth services for wellness concerns rose from 11 percent in 2019 to 46 percent in 2020. According to Jeremy Shin of WGSN, homes became a sanctuary for wellness as people worked hard to uplift their spirits during these trying times.
But despite these successes in the wellness industry, the actual wellness centers opened to the public suffered. Back in March 2020, professionals who own or work at wellness centers predicted that their customer service would change for the worse by more than 70 percent throughout 2020. Because public wellness centers were classified as health hazards, people stopped going to them for a relaxing weekend. But now that the economy is opening again and millions of people are getting vaccinated all over the world every day, more people are becoming hopeful for the survival and eventual success of wellness centers. So long as they maintain health safety, there is no doubt that they will recover from the dire effects of the pandemic. Now, our investments in custom pool contractors, luxurious amenities, and other services will not go to waste. Here’s how.
Rebuild Strong Engagement with Guests
Before our wellness centers can have a successful re-opening, we must first ensure that we are properly engaging with potential guests. This is crucial because it’s how we will gain their trust again. Because wellness centers were deemed a health hazard, we need to rebuild our relationship with our guests again. And we can do that through our social media pages and websites. We need to be transparent about the health safety precautions that we’re taking. This is so that people will know what to expect when they check in at our wellness centers for a long weekend of relaxation.
During this process, the other goal is to always be available for inquiries. There is no doubt that guests will be ensuring first the health safety precautions before they visit. So we need to be there to address their questions and concerns.
Maintain Social Distancing
The biggest concern with wellness centers is that the amenities require guests to share. Pools and hot tubs are great examples of this. So it’s important to let our guests know that, to date, there hasn’t been any scientific study on the possibility of spreading the coronavirus through the water in pools and hot tubs. This statement comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But, even though this is the case, it’s still crucial to prioritize social distancing in such amenities. So what we can do is implement a strict by-appointment-only setup in our wellness centers. This is to ensure that we can limit the number of people who might interact with one another inside our facilities. Once the pandemic ends, though, then we can start accepting walk-in guests.
Ensuring Safety During Massage Therapy Sessions
Because massage therapy sessions require close proximity between guests and massage therapists, this service has been highly discouraged during the height of the pandemic. But now that wellness centers are making a slow but steady recovery, we can start offering massage services again to guests in need. Although it won’t be easy, we can ensure health safety through these ways.
For one, we need to enforce a strict mask rule during massage therapy sessions. This will be hard but it helps lower the risks of the transmission of the coronavirus. It would also help to consider conducting these services in rooms with open windows or in open spaces. This is to ensure that there’s ample ventilation — which would help a lot as well with lowering the risks of COVID-19 transmission.
Providing Sanitization Services
In wellness centers, customers also share small things such as towels, robes, slippers, etc. So apart from properly laundering such things, it’s also important to ensure that they are properly sanitized before each customer uses them. It’s also important for us to make sure that our guests can reach out to make sanitation centers whenever they need to.
Re-opening wellness centers won’t be easy. Gaining guests’ trust again would take a lot of work. Investing in health safety precautions would also take up a huge chunk of our budget. But these are the challenges that we can overcome to start our wellness centers’ recovery and paths to success during the COVID-19 pandemic.
