Soothe your tired muscle at hotel spas

Pevonia Spa at The Ritz-Carlton, Seoul opened in February last year. / Courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton, Seoul

By Kim Se-jeong

Looking for a place in the city where you can get a quick massage to relax your stiff muscles and rejuvenate your skin, which is covered with the seasonal yellow dust?

Spas in Seoul hotels offer just what you are looking for. Spas have become a must facility for many hotels, especially so for luxury hotels.

Hotels often contract with a spa management company. The spas are open to hotel clientele and walk-in customers.

Being located in a well-known hotel can boost a spa’s reputation and vice versa. A reputable spa brand can be a plus for a hotel. Spas are trying to lure customers with effective body treatments and skin care programs, massage oil ingredients and other skin care products.

Lotte Hotel Seoul’s Sulwhasoo Spa

Pevonia Spa at The Ritz-Carlton, Seoul is one of the most coveted ones in the city.

Since it first opened in February last year, Pevonia has made a name among customers of all ages and genders. Pevonia is an international skin care product and spa brand, and its spa at the Ritz is its first outside the United States, where the company was founded.

According to the hotel’s representatives, Guus Hiddink, a former national football team coach, and his wife, Liesbeth Pinas, who are known to visit Korea every three months, are regulars. Another one of the spa’s recent high-profile customers was an Abu Dhabi princess, according to spa manager Reina Suh, refusing to reveal the princess’s name to ensure her privacy. The manager said the princess visited the shop last fall, getting a massage every day during her stay at the hotel.

Suh was also invited to her home for a spa session when Suh was visiting Abu Dhabi for an expo at the end of last year. Suh couldn’t make it because of her tight schedule.

There are two things behind Pevonia Spa’s success.

W Seoul-Walkerhill’s AWAY Spa

The first is its heritage. Pevonia is a natural skincare product manufacturer founded in Florida, the United States, in 1991.

The founders, Philippe Hennessy and his wife Sylvie, were descendants of the founders of Louis Vuitton, a French luxury fashion brand created in the late 19th century. Making skin products for their families using natural ingredients was the founding mission of Pevonia. Its products became popular after they gained customers like Angelina Jolie and Cameron Diaz.

Customers of Pevonia Spa are treated with quality, elegant and fragrant spa products, samples of which they also receive as a gift.

The second contributor to Pevonia’s success is its “four hands” massage technique, in which two therapists massage a client.

THE PLAZA’s Spa Club

An important aspect of this technique is how well the two therapists work together.

First, the therapists are always a man and woman. “This creates a more balanced energy when treating the customers on the massage table,” Suh said.

The therapists also coordinate their breathing and hand temperatures so that their body and hand motions feel identical to the customers. “Our goal is to make customers feel like they receive the massage by a therapist with four hands,” Suh said.

Pevonia is open from 10 a.m. till 10 p.m. every day except for the third Monday of the month. The services start at 77,000 won, with the most expensive spa session available for 310,000 won. Hotel packages, when available, provide spa discounts. For more information, call (02)565-4422.

Other hotel spas

The PLAZA’s Spa Club has resident medical doctors who advise customers on their body conditions before choosing a spa program. The hotel’s “For My Fair Lady” package includes a one-night stay, a single spa session, breakfast and two free tickets to Deoksu Palace, a nearby tourist attraction. The package costs 470,000 won.

Lotte Hotel Seoul’s Sulwhasoo Spa is known for its salt studio, a dry sauna with salt. The hotel offers two packages, including a one-night stay, breakfast and one spa session. The packages cost 480,000 won and 680,000 won.

W Seoul-Walkerhill’s AWAY Spa is popular for its therapeutic hot tubs, including a Hinoki bathtub on the hotel’s deck. Each hot tub contains water with therapeutic properties. The hotel packages, which start at 350,000 won, also provides spa discounts.