Six Senses: Much more involved in Wellness Real-estate

Mark Sands is one of the few international executives in the hospitality industry who needs no introduction. As Vice President of Wellness in the Six Senses Group he is considered one of the most influential international figures in shaping new trends, setting the strategy and positioning a Group of 17 hotels, 26 spas and 3,350 employees in 20 countries. As an integral part of the Group for the past decade he is the right person to provide us with a comprehensive picture of well-being in the world of hotels and how it changes in the medium and long run.

Over the past 18 months we have witnessed change and disruption across all aspects of human life and behavior. What are the key challenges and opportunities in the medium and long term for Six Senses and/or Six Senses Spas in the post-covid era?

The immediate challenges are getting all resorts back open and our teams back to doing what they do so well. Whilst Europe seems to be in a much better place. Whilst travel, access and rapidly changing restrictions are a huge challenge we can only focus on what’s in our control. We need to get the teams back in a responsible way, ensuring they are re trained, re introduced and reconnected to the Six Senses DNA. We introduced Rituals, Reconnection experiences and Wellness days into our offering during the pandemic to respond positively to the challenges we all faced. Allowing guests to focus on themselves, explore the communities we have our wonderful resorts in and to reconnect to both nature and others. Hosts (we call staff – hosts at Six Senses) have gone through additional training through Mission Wellness, host wellness program, to help them adjust to the return to work, to help them sleep, breath, eat, move and be curious. 

Even during the pandemic, we have witnessed an amazing level of creativity from the hospitality industry. What does Six Senses have in store for its guests in the years to come? 

We adapted during the early stages of the pandemic to get our experts online to enable us to stay connected to guests and hosts. Through At Home With Six Senses were introduced to different markets and different opportunities have arisen. This will continue and as we open more urban hotels membership clubs – a greater lifestyle focus. You will see us much more involved in Wellness Real-estate, the Forestias in Bangna, Bangkok being a really integrated wellness multigenerational community. Six Senses villa residences can be purchased with a Six Senses hotel and Six Senses Place our membership club. Of course wellness and sustainability remain our core pillars and those guest programs mentioned earlier, Reconnect to Nature allows us to profile our hero experiences in our resorts, Reconnect to Others focuses on community, both inside the resort and in those communities we are lucky to be within, the Wellness days Mind your brain, Love your heart and Boost your immunity allow guest to focus on themselves with private wellness experiences, learning, self-care as well as a little biohacking and of course sleep advice. 

How do you see the pandemic affecting travel norms and habits in the midterm? 

Business travel you can see being heavily effected and our own ability to work differently using online mediums has really been interesting. Personally feel in the mid-term it might be reasonable to expect business travel to halve based on pre pandemic numbers. I do not think this should be viewed as a negative nor as a part of a recovery … but more so as an acceleration to adopt more efficient business practices. Online meetings have become so much more effective and improved so rapidly. A little less air travel helps reduce carbon emissions. If a greater percentage of air travel is for recreation, rest, recovery, exploring different cultures and reconnecting then wellness will improve. Resorts will struggle until travel rebounds, but we have seen longer term family stays – taking that work from home into the realms of work with a view. It is way easier to be creative and inspired when you look out over a natural view. Whilst international travel was restricted domestic markets have really explored their own countries more with a great level of appreciation than ever before.

On a personal note, how has the pandemic affected the way you see travel? Has it changed your perspective and your travel norms? 

I see traveling more and more as a privilege and as an opportunity to learn. You do not appreciate what you’ve got until its gone. I have learned so much from traveling to different cultures … gained a wonderful international family and retained curiosity. I feel that’s how we stay young and keep growing. I really want our guests to learn from their experiences around our amazing locations and the cultures we represent. 

For Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas, wellness has been at the core of your vision for a unique guest experience since the first day of operation. In a post-pandemic era, how do you see your approach evolving in a global market environment where all brands try (some successfully – others not) to connect their brand narrative with wellness? 

I see us moving further into lifestyle, which is natural given our movement into urban hotels, a greater focus on residential in both resorts and urban settings and membership clubs. We will see a real community of Six Senses guests and residential owners. SS has focused on wellness and sustainability from the beginning. Whilst it seems in vogue now it was not always the case. I am delighted other companies and brands are trying to do their bit. Competition keeps us on our toes, encourages us to be innovative and who would not want hospitality taking better care of the environment? It reflects the importance of the key pillars of Six Senses. We all embrace the movement and hope that those really moving into wellness in a big way do so with a mindful approach towards their communities and the wider environment. Regenerative travel and having a positive impact on the cultures and communities we are in are of key importance for Six Senses. We feel that there is a market for travel where it is more meaningful and leaves behind it a positive impact not a carbon footprint. 

How quickly does your Group expect recovery to take place? Do you see a sharp, V-shaped return to 2019 figures, or do you believe things might take a little bit longer to return to the pre-pandemic status quo? 

A rather more up and down – strange looking letter of the alphabet is more likely although a sharp V is what we would all want. We can see Asia are in a tough place now as Europe seems to be improving and a few months ago it was possibly the other way around. I think it will be a while until we see global figures hitting the 2019 levels, but we do see a pent-up hunger to travel and experience different cultures and climates. Resorts I can see returning to something closer to 2019 faster than urban hotels but we might be seeing more of a squiggly long tick than a V.  

A commitment to engaging with local communities and an earnest respect for local heritage are deeply rooted into your brand DNA. How do you actively engage in the post-covid era with your local partners?

I do not see a huge change here from what we were doing before the pandemic. We have 0.5 percent of our revenues committed to local community sustainability projects. This continues with a greater focus on water provision and protection of the local ecosystems. We partner with projects that mean something to the local community so our hosts, guests and local communities can see and feel the improvements. 92 percent off our hosts are local to our resorts. We continue our journey to being plastic free through engaging with suppliers, challenging them to change packaging, helping them identify other methods and then sharing those suppliers with our hospitality partners and competition. Every department, every host and every guest have an impact here. We see that cascading effect through our hosts families, through guests and their families and friends and hopefully even through those supplies into all their supply chain. In Six Senses Laamu the simple provision of reusable storage containers to local fishermen enabled them to transition away from polystyrene boxes. Those fishermen totally removed polystyrene from their supply to all their customers and reduced their overheads.