Lots of hotels have kids programs that provide adventure and education (along with a break from, and for, the parents). Lots and lots of hotels have wellness programs, from facials to forest-bathing, spa treatments to sleep aids.
But what about kids’ wellness programs? For Amy McDonald, the opportunity lies in creating “really meaningful bonding time for family.” McDonald, principal of Under a Tree Consulting in Tucson, Arizona, and a 30-year veteran of spa and hospitality, including a stint at Miraval, has worked with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and Mii amo in Sedona, Arizona.
What do families want in wellness programming? McDonald’s answer: “They actually want to do something together. They do want to learn, but they want to do something together than the sum of its parts.” HOTELS talks with McDonald about the possibilities at the nexus of two hot trends: multi-generational travel and wellness.
HOTELS: What is wellness?
Amy McDonald: It’s the first thing that I ask a client: What does it mean to you? It doesn’t matter what it means to me. I need to understand what it means to them. To me, in the simplest form, wellness is experiencing a state of wellbeing. It can be as simple as an amazing glass of wine with someone you love. To me, it’s whenever you have the opportunity to connect someone back to themselves and they have even a moment of heartfelt, real emotion.
I think we over-complicate. I think we think, ‘Wellness means I have to go and lose weight. I have to go to a resort and have a bunch of treatments. I have to go and I can’t drink.’ Celebration is, I think, a really big part of what wellness is. Family and connecting. It doesn’t have to be for an hour or a day or a week.
H: What should hotels stop doing?
AM: I think they need to stop having those 9-to-3 programs where they’re basically just warehousing. Parents are spending a lot of money. (Kids are) eating off a ridiculous kids’ menu with the same greasy food. I think that they need to stop and look at that program. I think some parents still want that all day, but how do they bring wellness into it? Can they get them out for a more meaningful hike? Can they get them to learn how to get herbs from a garden and come back in and make something?
What might hotels with established wellness programs be missing?
AM: (What’s rare is) for a hotel to step back and really look at the talent they have in their spa… What I am encouraging clients to do is to not see the boundary. Wellness doesn’t happen only in a treatment room. Wellness happens at sunrise. At sunset. At turndown. In the room… You could put a sleep package together, where it’s delivered to the room. Let’s say it’s a family. Maybe they have an add-on room because they’re traveling with kids, but (the hotel offers) a fun, interactive package about how to improve your sleep. It’s brought to the room as an upgrade package.
Why can’t we do really interesting self-care workshops, where the therapist, someone really great, comes over? Maybe it’s before cocktail time or whatever. (The therapist could say) ‘You know the next time your mom is in a really bad mood and you really want to do something or you want to run away? Try this acupuncture point. Try this head massage. When you start to get a headache, because you’re 13, here’s what your mom could be doing to help you. Here’s what you could be doing to help yourself now.’
H: What about including kids in spa services already offered?
AM: (Girls) bite their fingernails. So doing something that’s really sweet – this is more superficial, but if I can go to a resort and get my daughter to have a manicure… She’s too embarrassed to go where we live. In a resort, she would. If I could go to a manicurist that actually talk about self-care, where we both went and it’s a mommy-daughter (event) … It’s taking things a little bit further. You’re going to have a manicure, but don’t make it just about beauty. Make it about where you could book a little bit longer treatment, where the manicurist talks about what you could be doing. Sometimes, our kids, they won’t listen to us, but they’ll listen to a stranger.
H: How would you advise hotel companies considering implementing a kids’ wellness program?
AM: There’s a lot of families traveling together. We’ve observed this moment of frustration when we realize that the parents can engage in all these different activities, but the kids have to go to the kids’ club. There’s a couple of different areas. I typically have (hotels) look at the kids’ club. Think about it as ‘What are you doing at your kid’s club that you could bring parents in and make it meaningful for them?’
Obviously, it’s age-specific. I think there is opportunity. Not just say, ‘Hey, parents. We’re encouraging you to come.’ Make it so that it’s better because a parent is there. Ask that question: ‘What are we doing that’s working but that could be better if the parent was there?’ Let’s face it: Parents don’t have a lot of time. We’re taking fewer and fewer vacations. It’s really stressful, the period before and after we get back (from vacations). We are desperate to have time to ourselves, we’re desperate to have time with our partner, and we’re desperate to have time with our kids, right?… Where is that compromise? By creating something that’s going to be beneficial for the parent and the kids, individually and collectively, that’s important.
H: Wellness usually implies disconnecting, but let’s be honest: People want to post their experiences on social media.
AM: (Wellness is about) meeting people where they are. I think that it is about intentionally creating family experiences, whether they’re indoors or outdoors, in their room or on the top of the mountain. Cultivating intentionally those experiences so that at the highest point of that experience, it can be a social media opportunity to engage.
I think we create those. It’s part of the story. Let’s embrace it and say, ‘We’re doing this. If it’s a social media opportunity for you, we’re going to be right there with you.’ The properties should really be love that also. It’s great for them. I think we also have to have a responsibility to cultivate the ones where the phones are left (behind). They’re in their little sleeping bags and they’re left somewhere else. Everyone goes in with the expectation that it’s going to be one of those experiences where you’re not going to capture it other than in your memory and in your heart. I think we have to have both.