Wellness concierge service launches at LUX Resorts

LUX Resorts & Hotels has launched a wellness concierge service in collaboration with London-based health and fitness expert Stephen Price of SP&Co. 

Launching this month at LUX's Indian Ocean properties, the wellness concierge service gives all guests the option of a free 20-minute consultation to identify their wellness needs and develop a wellness programme tailormade to their goals and priorities. 

The wellness itinerary can include a number of elements under the brand’s wellness umbrella, LUX ME - including yoga, meditation, personal training sessions, tai chi, nutrition advice and cooking classes. 

The wellness concierges will also encourage guests to participate in other activates offered at the LUX resorts, from diving lessons, horse riding and trekking, to bike riding, paddle boarding, swimming with dolphins and, at Lux Maldives, swimming with whale sharks. 

One wellness concierge is already in place, at LUX Belle Mare in Mauritius, with the concierges at the other properties set to be in place within the next two months. 

Jeff Butterworth, chief spa and wellness office at LUX Resorts & Hotels, explained that while the different wellness components had been in place since the launch of LUX ME four years ago, there was a need to link them together more closely.

“We had all the pieces in place, but we found that guests weren’t really seeking the wellness out, so we needed someone to be the voice of all the different wellness themes we have,” Butterworth said. 

“So Stephen trained the wellness concierges and their role is to bring [the wellness] team together and make sure people really know we have a wellness programme”. 

The aim of the concierge service is, Butterworth added, “very much about enhancing the guest experience and offering that high level of customer orientation”. The spa concierges will oversee a “red flag” system designed to ensure that personalised service follows guests from one wellness area to another. 

Butterworth said: “The therapist, personal trainer or yoga instructor will pass on information about different areas of concern for the guest, and the wellness concierge will collect that information from the different activities the guests have been participating in."

“So if, for example, the therapist picks up on the fact that you have a really tight neck during a massage, the yoga instructor would receive that information.” 

LUX’s ambition is not, Butterworth added, to offer the more intense wellness programmes provided by some destination resorts and detox retreats. “Our [wellness] phrase is lighter and brighter; a lighter side of wellness. 

“Guests come to use for a holiday first, so the priority has to be relaxing and chilling out. And then we’re trying to create this wellness experience, as [an add-on], but we don’t want to regiment it too much.” 

Price, who runs fitness and wellness studio SP&Co on Kings Road in London, and also collaborates with two Harley Street clinics on medical wellness services, has also developed a course in wellness for LUX's non-wellness professionals.

This, Butterworth explained, is "to have them really understand the wellness concept too".