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A Hot Stone Massage by Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts.

Spas need to get the basics of massage right before adding variations of the therapy to their treatment menus.

As the best selling spa therapy worldwide, massage is a treatment menu staple. Spas need to offer massage, and more importantly, they need to offer a range of massage treatments delivered by well-trained technical experts.

"Over the last 20 years the emphasis has always been on Swedish massage but new spas need to offer several different types of massage," says Aromatherapy Associates president Geraldine Howard.

"The list can include Swedish, Deep Tissue or Sports, Aromatherapy, Meriden, Ayurvedic, Reiki, Russian, Thai, Balinese, Lomi Lomi and Chinese. Each of these will predominantly use different massage techniques for the core and focus of the treatment," she explains.

"Along with offering the different techniques, spas are offering massages to target specific problems such as jet lag or for de-toxing and these will often use a combination of the various disciplines," says Howard.

"Therapists need to be intuitive and sensitive to the varying needs of clients. Today, one standard treatment will not be suitable for all clients," she adds.

Tailoring techniques

With so many massages now being offered, is it vital that therapists both undergo appropriate training prior to practising and also that they are able to tailor their skills to the needs of each and every client.

This is particularly important in the Middle East, which attracts therapists from Asia, Europe and Africa, all with indigenous influences and a unique touch.

For all though, training in massage should only commence once the therapist has a thorough understanding of anatomy and physiology (A&P), says Howard.

"They need to have a solid understanding of A&P before even touching a body."

"They also need to be well informed nowadays since many spa goers are extremely well educated and experience massages all over the world," she says.

Diane Khoshkhoo, principal of the Cleopatra Beauty Institute (CBI) in Dubai, explains: "On average, it takes 13 weeks to train a therapist from scratch but they have to have a qualification in full A&P first. They have to have a thorough understanding of all the systems of the body - circulatory, digestive, endochrine, urinary."

"Once they've achieved that understanding and have that qualification, and only then, are they allowed to enter on the massage course," says Khoshkhoo.

"We start with the basics - traditional Swedish massage which forms the foundation for a lot of the techniques used around the world," she says.

Khoshkhoo admits she has seen examples of a lack of A&P knowledge among therapists in Dubai.

"It isn't something we would experience in the west as much as here. That's not to say that the therapists in Dubai are not good, they've just followed a different route of training in their country," she says."

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