Spa management and operations company Trilogy Spa Holdings has announced the purchase of Trinity Spa Advisors – a boutique spa asset management firm.

This deal also sees Trinity’s founder and CEO Cheryl Sott added to Trilogy’s team as vice president of asset management.

Sott brings a combination of experience from Wall Street – in particular as an asset manager at Paine Webber (now UBS) – and Main Street as a consultant to the spa and hospitality industry through the companies she founded.

She will oversee the expansion of Trilogy’s asset management division, which works with operating partners and onsite management teams in an advisory role to mitigate risk while maximising growth.

Trilogy has charged Sott to apply her Wall Street-level financial analysis, creative tactics and strategies and six-sigma LEAN operational fixes to luxury resort spas to help break the cycle of needless reinvention and to systematically attain profitability and five-star level service standards.

Sott will also spearhead the utilisation of one of Trinity's tool’s that attracted Trilogy to the boutique firm – its patent-pending, proprietary Spa Audit Service.

What is the Spa Audit Service?

This new diagnostic and analytical tool uses a 350-point, objective review of a resort or hotel spa business to map the spa’s DNA and pinpoint systemic and acute issues that are standing in the way of business objectives.

Past Trinity Spa Audit clients include a resort that realised a 725 per cent return on investment from the audit as well as a doubling of retail sales in subsequent months.

Trilogy announced that the purchase of Trinity and Sott’s background will enable the company to diversify from full-service spa management contracts and offer a one-time diagnostic service to a wide range of spas.

After receiving their assessment, Spa Audit clients can select from Trilogy’s menu of services to address their specific needs, whether in retail, finance, human resources, systems or operations.

Another option for new Spa Audit clients is for Trilogy to provide ongoing monthly support for spas to execute agreed-upon strategy and tactics, acting as a 'coach' to help clients achieve their individual goals.

Initiatives the Spa Audit could recommend include positioning, pricing, marketing strategy, operational efficiencies, revenue management and labour strategy and support, as well as expense management, vendor support and negotiation and guest experience.

Trilogy announced that the service will also be advantageous to its long term asset management clients, supporting the company’s mission to transform hotel and resort spas from necessary but unprofitable amenities into customer service-forward and financially healthy assets.

“We’re proud of our role as a disruptor in the hospitality and spa industries,” explains John Grunbeck, Trilogy SVP business development.

“On an entrepreneurial level, Cheryl is a two-time disruptor; having created one of the first algorithm-based, beauty customisation apps 20 years ago and now a diagnostic audit tool for spas.

“By joining forces, we amplify our advisory services and become the premier spa asset management company in the world.

“Trilogy can also help take the Spa Audit to the next level by leveraging Cheryl’s know-how with our reputation as ‘spa fixers’ to achieve optimum market penetration and truly make a difference in the industry.”

About TrilogyFounded in 2011 by David Stoup, co-founder of La Prairie Cosmetics and former CEO of Red Door Spas, Trilogy Spa Holdings is a spa management company made up of professionals from the hospitality and spa industries.

Its portfolio of hotel brands includes Four Seasons, Fairmont, Ritz-Carlton, Waldorf Astoria and Westin, in markets such as New York, California, Arizona, Texas and Puerto Rico.

With a goal of lessening the burden on hotel ownership and management, Trilogy oversees spa departments including marketing, human resources, operations and retail.

Pre-pandemic Trilogy revenues were reported to be up by an average of 20 per cent year-over-year at the spas they managed, and, post-pandemic, the company states that all of its spas are profitable.

The Arizona-based company claims to focus not only on a spa’s bottom line but also on how to fortify the “soul” of each of its clients.