The International Spa Association (ISPA) has withdrawn its support from the ISPA Asia Pacific Spa and Wellness Conference in Shanghai, China, which began yesterday and will conclude on 9 June.

ISPA’s withdrawal from the conference was described by ISPA president Lynne Walker McNees as being a business decision, primarily made due to low attendance figures for the conference.

The conference was co-organised with International Management Concepts (IMC) and, according to Walker McNees, there were a total of 25 pre-registered attendees and 30 exhibiting companies. However, despite withdrawing its support, an abbreviated conference programme with a revised agenda of speakers still ran, and four ISPA board members were still in attendance.

In a statement released to delegates attending the conference, Walker McNees said: “Through the years, the ISPA Asia Pacific conference has continually exceeded attendees’ expectations with its high level of education and networking. We were recently notified that attendance for the event was extremely low, so we were unable to justify further investment of member dollars in an event that will not have the global impact on the spa industry as originally intended.”

Walker McNees also acknowledged that ISPA’s decision to withdraw from the event was made with very short notice before the event began, meaning some delegates were already on aeroplanes, travelling to the conference.

Speaking to Spa Opportunities, she said: “It’s awful – the announcement was way too close. Unfortunately, we received the attendees’ names on 5 June and we contacted them on 6 June. The 12-hour time difference made it even harder. But, we had been asking IMC for those names for over a week.”

Walker McNees concluded: “We are not abdicating any responsibility here. We chose IMC as a partner in China to execute our conference and ISPA is still accountable. So in no way whatsoever are we pointing the finger. We’re saying that we made the right decision with the information that we had at the time that we had it. In hindsight, would we have done it differently? Absolutely, that’s why there’s hindsight. The lesson ISPA has learnt is that, in the future, we will take a more hands-on approach and involve ourselves more in the day to day planning and execution of this conference.”

The 25 pre-registered attendees will receive a complimentary copy of the 2007 ISPA Asia Pacific Consumer Report that was to be released at the event. In addition, ISPA has offered one complimentary registration to the 2007 ISPA Conference and Expo to be held November in Kissimmee, Florida, US to each of the 25 attendees.