With the tourist industry complaining about facing tough times, Jeff Butterworth, chief Spa and wellness officer at LUX* Island Resorts explains how he plans to help boost the industry’s competitiveness. Will his prescriptions catch on or is it just another passing fad?

¦ The aim of the retreat you have organised is to introduce a new concept to the market. What exactly is it based on?

The first thing we looked at is that instead of eating from the same pie that was getting smaller, we thought that we needed to enlarge it. People who come on vacation look after themselves because they have the time and they can learn something about health and well being that they can take back home with them. We wanted to create something different that no one else was doing and make the whole holiday experience richer and more creative with lasting memories rather than the typical holiday experience that they would come to expect.

¦ The concept is actually about teaching people how to cook, eat and exercise. Isn’t that an awful lot of teaching?

Well, it is a bit of teaching, but we say that it’s education rather than medication. It’s giving people the tools to choose for themselves. We don’t tell people what to do. They can also choose the intensity with which they want to follow these programmes.

¦ But people who come to Mauritius come here to relax by the sea. You are depriving them of them of that, aren’t you?

What we have seen is that 50% of people coming on holiday focus on rest and wellbeing. Often, however, they are not able to do anything because the food is unhealthy so nutritionally it’s a no-go and the gyms are poor. So there is that bit of effort from them but it’s not fully honed. So we want to give them that experience where they can choose. Sometimes, because they’re working so hard they don’t have the time, so they can come here and experiment with these concepts.

¦ Has there been a response? Have people been coming up and telling you that we don’t want to relax but we want to exercise and do all those things that people normally don’t do on holidays?

It’s a choose-your-own-adventure type of thing. We just provide the options and you take your pick. It’s a whole new layer on the ‘Lux’ concept. It’s not about forcing people to do anything. And people go for that. What we are finding is that people are saying: ‘Wow, we didn’t know we could do that!’ So they’re actually appreciating the lengths that we are going to.

¦ Don’t your clients find health food off-putting because that’s generally associated with salads and disgusting stuff that you certainly don’t want to eat during your holiday?

That’s an interesting point. Most people tend to think of health food as boring, bland and having no taste. But what we want to show them is that when it’s done properly, health food can be gourmet, tasty and enjoyable. We just provide the option. We are trying to teach people that health food can taste good but then we actively encourage people to relax and enjoy themselves. What we have seen is that when people go back from holiday, they often feel worse than when they left because they haven’t exercised they haven’t done anything to actually look after themselves.

¦ With Mauritian cuisine not being the healthiest of all cuisines, aren’t they going to miss out on the Mauritian experience?

That’s the thing. It depends on how you prepare it. Mauritian food can be very healthy. It depends on substituting certain ingredients like oils and how we prepare the meals. Health chefs came in and showed our chefs how to prepare their food in a healthier way so you can come on holiday and leave guilt-free.

¦ And you also learn how to cook?

I think that’s part of the whole experience. I know myself when I go on holiday, I love to go to cooking classes and that’s part of the holiday experience. People love that it’s about education, teaching guests how to cook something healthy, simple, quick and tasty how to take it back with them to their own worlds and how to do it at home.

¦ How do you compile a whole set of healthy food that’s gourmet and tasty that people want to eat and learn on holiday?

It’s a big job because – and we’ve learned lessons already – when we focused only on the health aspect, people generally didn’t go for it. Then we went back to the drawing board and our chefs started exploring a healthier version of the types of foods that people would like to eat on holiday. But it’s not all healthy we’ve got traditional foods as well. But what we do is that we look at all the foods that we present and offer a menu plan from which they can pick and choose and then if they choose the healthy option, we make it easy for them.

¦ But food alone is not enough for healthy living, is it?

There are four pillars to this programme. Nutrition, which is a big part of it, fitness, which revolves around functional fitness and using your own body weight. Functional fitness is the new trend that takes on board cardiovascular, strength and flexibility. So what we do is develop programmes that focus on those and try to use your own body weight to focus on these areas. The benefit of that is that you can do that wherever you want. You don’t need the gym anymore you can do it in your own living room, in a hotel room... The exercise options open up a lot of possibilities.

¦ But doesn’t that take something away from the holiday? If you know that you have to exercise for one hour everyday, isn’t that off-putting?

Well that’s an option again. Our fitness classes are extremely popular. We have about 10-15 people coming in for each session. There’s only so much you can do sitting in a sun lounge. Not everyone these days goes on holiday just to relax that’s a little old school. These days, people are out to get a much richer experience. Hoteliers have traditionally held on to this relaxation principle because it’s easier. It’s easy to just let somebody sit in a sun lounge all day. But people these days are a lot more connected and want much more out of a holiday that they’ve worked hard to get. So what we are doing is just giving them the opportunity to make that selection.

¦ Is this a new market or is it the same market that we are looking at differently?

I’m giving it a definition and I call it the “leisure and wellness market”. You have the leisure travel market and then you have the destination-oriented ones. But you have this huge chunk – up to 50% - that are interested in the health and wellbeing aspect of it that people are not catering for. They come and all they can do is relax or go shopping. There are a lot of people who care about their health and well being. You may have people who exercise a lot before coming on holiday and then go back looking like they did three weeks ago. Health and well-being is a massive market that’s growing and one which a lot of people are interested in. Futurists in the industry recognise that the big trend right now is in health and well-being. That’s one of the top three or four new trends.

¦ How come Mauritius has all these years been content offering just the sea and the sun and now we are getting up and saying ‘no, no, no let’s overhaul that’…

What we are saying is that by all means come for the sea and the sun, but while you are here, here’s another activity that you can do. It’s just another layer on the holiday experience. Mauritius has been a bit behind the times. There are a lot of attractive destinations around the world that are marketing themselves very effectively in different ways. What we need to do is get more competitive and offer more than just sitting all day with the sea and the sand.

¦ The problem I have is that again, it’s a concept that’s centered around European markets. I mean we’re saying that Europe is going down and that we need to tap the emerging markets but the Indian or Chinese guys aren’t going to come here for the health meals, are they?

Well, the Indian market won’t come here for the health and fitness regimen because they already have a developed culture at home. The Chinese are a different matter. In the Maldives, for instance, the Chinese love health programmes. They love yoga classes. Nutrition’s a different element. They like their cuisine. But if you go to Beijing, you’ll see the locals doing their exercise and Tai Chi. It’s all about how you communicate it to them. We have translated all of our material into Chinese, Japanese, Russian and German. So we’re well on our way to diversifying.

¦ The missing element is culture. If the tourist stays in the hotel, cooks there and eats there, how much time will s/he have to interact outside?

The programme is very time flexible. Part of the Lux* concept is to actually take people out of the hotels. A lot of the hotels here want to keep people inside, but our branding is that we take people out for them to interact with the outside world. We’re toying with the idea of taking our guests out into the Sunday markets as part of the cooking class. Through our conceptional branding, we want people to experience Mauritius. But the concept was never that people will come for this aspect of it alone. Many will – it’s just another reason to choose Lux* - but it’s just another thing they can try along with everything else that they would normally expect to have done. The vitality programme is designed to create those kinds of lasting memories. So if someone comes and lies on the beach and goes back to Europe or whatever, that’s very basic. What we are about is surprising people.

¦ So they can still have their bacon and sausages for breakfast the next day?

If they choose to. We’re not here to say that ‘you’ve got to like this’. It’s about giving people that choice it’s there and it’s better to have it than not at all. It’s about planting the seed. You will have the health-conscious person, then you’ll have the one that probably knows that they should be taking better care of themselves but don’t. Well, they can come and try one of our programmes and that plants the seed. It’s about giving people that opportunity. It’s a hard thing to do. I mean the spa and wellbeing is a big trend but it’s hard to deliver in it, you know. It’s easy to conceptualize but difficult to pull it off.

¦ In general, with or without the new concept, how is our tourist industry doing? We’re getting conflicting reports.

Well, it’s gone down compared to previous years. Obviously Europe is a big concern…

¦ Yes, we keep hearing that but we still don’t seem to be able to attract many Chinese or Indians.

Well this is the focus now. The problem with getting the Chinese here is the flights. We can have all the packages they want but if we don’t have the flights, they will not come.

¦ This is the same old passing- the-buck situation between Air Mauritius and the hotel industry. People can come here via Dubai if they want to, can’t they?

We’re starting to see the numbers coming. We’re going to get the numbers, but we’re seeing something exciting happening. If you look at the Maldives, the number of Chinese tourists there is just massive.

¦ What are the Maldivians doing right that we aren’t?

I’m not on the tourist board but I think one of the things are the direct flights. The Maldivians have worked very closely with the Chinese. I mean we’re not completely dependent on the tourism board, we have taken promotional trips on our own as well, but what you’ve got to do is set yourself up to welcome that market. It’s easy to say ‘come, come, come’ but if you have no Chinese speakers, for example, they won’t come.

¦ Why don’t we have Chinese speakers?

We do now. We’ve got promotional material in Chinese. So we’re setting ourselves up for when the Chinese do come in numbers. You say Europe is failing, but if Europe really fails, the whole world fails. Europe is still our largest market and always will be. The challenge is to diversify while keeping that market from going elsewhere. It’s very competitive. You’re competing against Asia, Malaysia, China and India that have very well-developed tourism programmes. In Mauritius, we’re only just getting started really. I mean we are affected by Europe but it’s going to come back strong sooner or later. You’ve just got to have the product that’s right and attractive. I think our goal is to maintain as many European tourists as we can while tapping into tourists from emerging markets too. For instance, right now you have 18 Russian travel agents coming in. Russia’s another big market that we are preparing for Aeroflot is even contemplating bringing in some direct flights.

¦ What about the local market? How open are you to Mauritians?

One of the elements of our Lux* concept is to teach wellness and health, so we took a very conscious decision to give a 30% discount to local residents. Residents paying tourist prices is just silly.

¦ Mauritians want to enjoy the beaches that have been taken up by the hotels, so it’s really room rate that they are interested in.

We’ve got a lot of packages available at local rates and we have a lot of hotels in different areas. So it really depends on what you can afford to do. It’s a market that I know we’ve never focused on before but it’s in our sales and marketing goals now.

¦ Well, now that times have got tough who else is left but us?

(laughs) In previous jobs, I’ve always focused on locals. The trick is to do things well. If you’re going to offer basic services that everybody does and charge 100 euros for that, you won’t get very far, but if you layer that service with a whole range of different things, people will be a lot more willing to pay for it.

¦ Coming back to the concept, will you be coming up with statistics to show how many people are coming here for that new experience?

We’ll track it. What we are trying to do is give people a lot of reasons to come. We will obviously track its popularity internally. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

¦ If it works other hotels will be quick to pick it up.

A lot of people have tried to implement similar things but have failed. It’s not an easy thing to deliver well. Training is a big part of it. Guests don’t want to be regimented. You have to cater for that, make it available and make it attractive and have a team that is able to deliver on that. It is not easy for others to pick it up.

Touria PRAYAG
(l’express Weekly, Friday 1st June)

Touria PRAYAG