voices
ISPA Master Vendor Training Sessions:
voices
ISPA Master Vendor Training Sessions:
A Win-Win Opportunity for Spas and Resource Partners
BY FRANK PITSIKALIS
FRANK PITSIKALIS is founder and CEO of ResortSuite, a guest-focused hospitality management system. He has over 20 years of experience in hospitality and has worked at top international consulting firms such as Ernst & Young. He also devotes time serving on the executive committee of the board of ISPA and is part board member of the Leading Spas of Canada.
He was a contributing author of ISPA’ s resource tools including the Retail Management for Spas, SPA: A Comprehensive Introduction and the latest Financial Management for Spas. He can be reached at frank @ resortsuite. com.
As soon as the ISPA Board came up with the idea to offer Master Vendor Training Sessions at the 2011 ISPA Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, I immediately thought— we are definitely taking advantage of that! As early as then, I knew it was going to be a win-win opportunity by providing our spa clients with free education, a forum to share experiences with their peers, an opportunity to preview our latest innovations and provide input on future product direction.
Looking back at the investment we’ ve made, I have to say that it was a great business decision. Although my company, ResortSuite, was already a Platinum Sponsor of this year’ s Conference, and as always have had a tremendous return on investment, the bang for the buck we received from the Master Vendor Training Session was simply outstanding.
WIN FOR RESOURCE PARTNERS The Master Vendor Training Session, first offered at Conference this year, was conceived as an opportunity where Resource Partners could secure a meeting space on the Sunday prior to the start of Conference where they could hold product previews, training sessions or demonstrations either open to all attendees or by invitation only( i. e. with their customers or partners). ISPA’ s role was to help coordinate the logistics like space, audio visual or food and beverage from Mandalay Bay which made our work easier and gave us the chance to truly focus on more important details, like the content of our training.
48 PULSE ■ January / February 2012