Greetings from Rainy London…

Today I had lunch with some fellow spa professionals. One was from Hong Kong, one was from Bali, one from Australia, and another from the UK. Later in the afternoon I had tea with a spa colleague from Dubai, chatted with spa owners from Brazil, and was introduced to a spa owner from Turkey.

I am in London at the moment attending the London International Spa Convention for the third year in a row – one of my favorite spa conferences in the world because it attracts such an international mix of spa professionals and because I love the clever way they have organized it. It is held in conjunction with a very large Beauty and Spa Exhibition (over 450 companies) where I get to see and try out all the newest spa products and equipment.

There are approximately 40 speakers, and everyone presents as a panel of four with ten-minute presentations from each panelist. This is followed by some Q & A. Result? No boring speeches! They are strict about the ten-minute time limit; if you go on longer than that, they get the cane out. With a seven-slide limit and the snappy pace, it is a joy to hear the speakers and to be one of the presenters. My presentation was on 2006 Spa Trends.

In the next few blogs I’ll share some insights for those of you who are interested in the “tidbits” that I jot down in my notebook while listening to the presentations and the industry gossip that invariably is part of the “networking.”

Such as: Can you guess what spa performs more than 1,000 spa treatments per day?

Stay tuned.