This week has been filled with events and traveling. The week started with SPADAGARNA, the Swedish Spa association’s yearly event. The location for the event was the beautiful archipelago of Stockholm, at the Yasuragi spa. It is a large spa and conference resort / hotel, with a beautiful view over the sea, over the small islands and the inlet to Stockholm. Yasuragi is a strongly conceptualized Japanese spa and has a very special ambiance. All the guests, even those who attend conferences (not just SPADAGARNA – any conference) are all dressed in dark blue yukatas (Japanese style bathrobe) and slippers. (see picture) This dress code goes for the whole stay, even in the dinner restaurants!
This year the theme for SPADAGARNA was Sustainability! All seminars and lectures touched this subject. Me and Anna went there on Monday and started with an interesting a seminar about lifestyle and design trends by Stefan Nilsson. Many of the trends were familiar and some were more far out. Just to mention some of them;
Upstairs down stairs – Stefan predicted for more contrasts; What is expensive and exclusive will be even more expensive and on the opposite side, cheap will be cheaper. The contrasts will be larger, and the middle segment will fade away. However people will mix a lot between expensive and cheap, especially in fashion. Cheap pair of jeans together with an expensive designer t-shirt…
He also mentioned a very nice and positive trend; Random act of kindness, which more and more companies use. Surprising giveaways without expecting anything in return, will make people talk…For example the airline company that delivered Christmas gifts on the luggage belt (before the actual luggage arrived), to all passengers, flying the day before Christmas, now this will make people talk! One can wonder; Is this the coming marketing trend?
Anna was also part of a panel discussion about sustainability and the environment aspect in spas. How are Swedish spas doing compared to spas in other countries? Well, we have a lot to do in Sweden, although Swedes are very concerned about the environment, spas are still way behind. Anna suggested a Swedish network that would discuss environmental issues in spas as well as highlight and discuss initiatives that can be done in spas.
The day at Yasuragi was excellent for networking and meeting suppliers. And I was also lucky enough to end my day at Yasuragi with a one hour long “Klangresa”, a meditative session with singing bowls. It was the perfect ending of a productive day, just lying on a yoga mat listening to different healing sounds and vibrations, letting my thoughts drift away…
Unfortunately we missed the glamorous gala dinner in the evening, as we were booked on an early flight to Geneva the day after. But more about our trip to Switzerland in our next blog post…
//Maria
For more information:
Raison dEtre Spas 