Spa Set For Business
3 January 2007
Customers can enjoy a variety of spa treatments in Buxton.
The new facility will attract a broad client base offering an extensive spa treatment menu.
”Karen Wardley
What better way to relax into 2007 or detox after the excesses of Christmas than to visit a spa?
Buxton’s newest spa, the beautifully refurbished Devonshire Spa at the University of Derby Buxton, opens for business next week with a series of taster sessions to introduce customers to the world of spa treatments.
You can be one of the first to sample the new Devonshire Spa. Spa Manager Helen Hallam said: “From Tuesday, January 9, every Tuesday to Friday until the end of the month, clients can sign up for one of two daily two-hour ‘Devonshire Spa Experience’ sessions taking in the hydrotherapy pool, steam room, sauna, and monsoon shower.”
Each two-hour Devonshire Spa Experience costs £12.50. To book your session, call 01332 594408.
The University of Derby Buxton’s excellent spa training facility combines the luxury treatments found in this country’s best spa hotels with new academic research into hydrotherapy, massage and other complementary approaches to health and wellbeing.
Karen Wardley, who leads the Hair, Beauty and Spa Therapies subject areas, explained: “This facility will allow us to unite academic research with the current needs of this fast growing industry.
“The University’s Devonshire Spa is a well equipped training facility that we will run as a commercial spa so that students can learn to look after customers and manage the business side of the operation. We’ve taken an holistic approach to designing our programmes, encompassing therapy with operations management and strategic planning, as well as investigating cultural diversity and health tourism.
“All of the treatments offered at the Devonshire Spa focus on total relaxation to create a sense of wellbeing using, exclusively, one of the world’s leading spa product ranges, Elemis. Currently the University of Derby Buxton is the only training provider allowed to use this extensive range of products.
“Our BSc (Hons) degree in International Spa Management has been created in close consultation with industry specialists to meet their changing needs. We’re now in our fifth year and the course goes from strength to strength.
“In its life as a spa, the new facility will attract a broad client base offering an extensive spa treatment menu. This will enable our students to become highly skilled spa professionals providing an unrivalled service, giving a comprehensive selection of current treatments and preparing them for their careers in this country or abroad.”
The former Devonshire Royal Hospital was the last of the UK’s eight ‘hydropathic’ hospitals to close in 2000. After an award-winning £23m restoration project and refit, the building reopened as the Buxton Campus of the University of Derby. The hospital’s own hydrotherapy area was built in 1914, and this has now become the training spa.
Another ambitious restoration project is now underway in Buxton to return the Georgian Crescent to its former glory creating a five-star spa hotel. And the University will support the project with spa experts and students equipped with sought-after spa, hospitality and catering skills – key areas of activity in the Faculty’s School of Culture and Lifestyle.
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For further media information, contact Simon Butt, Press and PR Officer, on 07748 920023, 01332 591891 or via email on s.butt@derby.ac.uk.
