Wellness & Spa

This is the playbook we use at Borgo Santolina for the guest experience and day-to-day operation of our wellness and spa offering.

Purpose

Create a calm, easy-to-use wellness experience that feels like a retreat within the retreat, while making treatments, classes, facilities, cleanliness, safety, and provider coordination happen behind the scenes.

Principles

• The gym is primarily self-service.
• The space should feel quieter, more intimate, and more restorative than the rest of the property. Entering it should feel like crossing into a distinct environment.
• We remain responsible for the experience even when an outside provider delivers the treatment. The guest should not have to negotiate, coordinate logistics, or solve a provider problem.
• Cleaning and sanitation should be thorough but discreet. The spa should look continuously ready rather than periodically recovered from use.
• Prices, gratuities, cancellation terms, and any extra cost should be clear before a guest commits.

Roles & Ownership

One person may hold several of these roles at a small property, but each responsibility needs a clear owner.

• The Estate Manager explains access, helps guests use the self-service facilities, handles treatment bookings, communicates changes, and notices when the spa needs attention.
• The Estate Manager owns the current treatment offer, provider roster, booking workflow, pricing and cancellation information, confirmations, provider failures, and guest-facing exceptions.
• Housekeeping / property-readiness team: owns the reset of the spa, towels and linens, waste, serviceware, common-area cleanliness, and treatment-room turnover according to the approved spa cleaning checklist.
• Approved treatment providers: arrive prepared, deliver the booked service to the agreed standard, follow the approved room-use and sanitation requirements, and report any facility or guest-experience issue promptly.
• Food & Beverage team: owns preparation, food safety, and replenishment of spa refreshments. Wellness owns how those refreshments are presented and coordinated in the spa.
• Property Operations: owns installed equipment, maintenance, repairs, controls, manufacturer instructions, and technical troubleshooting for sauna, sensory-shower, HVAC, plumbing, and other spa systems.
• Management: approves providers and service models, decides what is included versus extra, resolves service-recovery issues, and closes any facility or treatment offering that cannot be delivered safely or reliably.

How We Operate

Spa Readiness & Atmosphere

Our current concept is a self-service wellness area supported by a sauna, massage rooms, a sensory shower, soaking tubs, and scheduled treatments or classes. The space should feel calm, private, obvious to use, and ready whenever a guest walks in.

The current gym and spa includes:

• Calm music at a low level when music is appropriate.
• Clearly visible fresh towels.
• An obvious place for used towels so guests never have to leave them on furniture or the floor.
• A self-service fruit smoothie.
• Electrolyte drinks.
• A clean, uncluttered setting with no abandoned towels, glasses, cups, plates, packaging, or trash.

Before the space is considered guest-ready, confirm:

• The room is clean, quiet, comfortably conditioned, and free of maintenance issues.
• Music, if used, is on at the intended volume.
• Fresh towels are stocked and the used-towel return is obvious.
• Refreshments and drinking water are available as planned for the day.
• Treatment rooms that may be used are clean, reset, and stocked.
• Sauna, sensory shower, and other self-service equipment that is being offered are operational and have current guest instructions.
• Floors and wet areas are dry enough for safe use and free of visible residue.
• No used serviceware, towels, trash, or personal items have been left behind.

Check the spa throughout the day and after known periods of use. Remove abandoned towels, glasses, serviceware, and trash as soon as they are noticed rather than waiting for a formal reset.

Guest Access & Self-Service Use

The spa should not require a staffed reception desk. Guests should be able to use the self-service facilities without asking permission each time, while knowing exactly how to get help.

During the initial property orientation or first spa use, cover only what the guest needs:

• Where the gym and spa and related wellness facilities are.
• What is self-service and what requires a booking.
• Where fresh towels and used-towel returns are.
• How to operate guest-facing equipment that is approved for self-service.
• Any concise facility-specific safety or etiquette rules.
• How to request a treatment, class, additional towel, drink, or other help through the approved guest communication channel.

Instructions should be visible where they are needed and short enough that a guest can understand them at a glance. If a facility is not intuitive or safe for unassisted use, do not treat it as self-service until the operating method is finalized.

Treatments & Massage Model

We use established, long term outside providers who travel to the property. This gives us more flexibility than carrying a full-time treatment staff, but it still requires dependable provider capacity and backups. The model is not final.

• Do not promise an included massage or guaranteed appointment availability.
• Present available treatments and prices from the current approved source, not from an old PDF, email, or remembered rate.
• Confirm provider availability before confirming the appointment to the guest.
• Keep at least one realistic backup option when possible for high-demand dates or provider failure.
• Make clear whether gratuity is included, not expected, or the guest's responsibility.
• Treat any provider-led class, personal-training session, or similar booked wellness service with the same confirmation and provider-control standards.

The treatment menu should remain deliberately limited to services we can source consistently and deliver well.

Booking, Confirmation & Changes

Guests should be able to request treatments through the messaging app. The guest-facing channel may change over time; the operating principle is that the request should reach the team without requiring the guest to contact a therapist directly.

For each treatment request, capture only what is needed to coordinate the service:

• Guest name.
• Requested treatment and duration.
• Preferred date and time, plus acceptable alternatives.
• Provider preference, if the guest has one and the provider roster supports it.
• Any relevant information the guest volunteers that the provider needs in order to prepare appropriately.

Before confirming with the guest, reconfirm:

• Specific provider.
• Date, start time, duration, and treatment location.
• Current price and what the price includes.
• Gratuity treatment.
• Cancellation and modification policy.
• Any provider travel or setup constraint that affects the appointment.

Send the confirmation through the normal guest communication channel and put the appointment into the live guest itinerary or operating schedule so the rest of the team can plan around it.

If a cancellation deadline applies, tell the guest when the appointment is booked and remind them before the window closes when the cost is meaningful. The Activities playbook uses a massage with a 12-hour cutoff as an example: a reminder should go out before the deadline, not after the charge becomes unavoidable.

When a guest wants to change or cancel:

• Understand the reason before assuming the only solution is a cancellation.
• Make a genuine effort to find another time or provider when that solves the problem.
• Explain any unavoidable fee before it is incurred whenever timing allows.
• Update the provider, guest itinerary, treatment room plan, and affected internal teams immediately.
• If the request cannot be accommodated, explain the constraint briefly and offer the best alternatives.

If the provider cancels, is late, or fails to appear, we own the problem. The guest should not be asked to chase the provider. Find the best replacement, reschedule, or recovery option and communicate it promptly.

Provider Management

Treatment providers are an extension of our guest experience. We should use a small, dependable roster rather than a long list of providers we do not know well.

Each provider record in our approved CRM or operating system should include:

• Primary and backup contact information.
• Services offered and the guests or needs for which the provider is a good fit.
• Current rates, travel fees, and our agreed economics.
• Availability patterns and realistic booking lead time.
• Cancellation and modification terms, plus our real-world experience with the provider's flexibility.
• Gratuity expectations.
• Required credentials, insurance, or other approval documents applicable to the service.
• Arrival, parking, access, setup, cleanup, and departure instructions.
• Treatment-room or equipment requirements.
• Known failure points, backup options, and any provider we should specifically request or avoid.

Before approving a provider, management should verify the qualifications, insurance, and other requirements that apply to the service and our insurance program. The property-specific approval checklist still needs to be finalized.

With every booking, reconfirm the provider, cost, cancellation terms, start time, duration, treatment location, and any guest-specific preparation the provider has agreed to.

Make a warm introduction when useful, but do not turn the guest relationship over to the provider. There should be no sales pitch, opportunistic upselling, or direct solicitation of our guests.

Treatment Rooms & Turnover

Treatment rooms should be fully reset before the provider arrives so the provider can focus on the treatment rather than housekeeping or searching for supplies.

Before a treatment:

• Confirm the room is clean, private, comfortably conditioned, and free of maintenance issues.
• Prepare fresh linens and towels required for the booked treatment.
• Confirm the treatment table and any approved equipment are clean, stable, and ready.
• Remove unrelated supplies, clutter, and personal items.
• Confirm drinking water and any approved guest amenity are ready.
• Confirm the provider has the access and setup information needed to arrive without interrupting the guest.

After each treatment:

• Remove used linens and towels for laundering.
• Remove waste and used serviceware.
• Clean and disinfect treatment surfaces and high-touch areas with the approved product and required contact time.
• Reset fresh linens, towels, and approved consumables.
• Inspect floors, bathroom or wash areas, furniture, and equipment.
• Report damage, equipment issues, unusual cleaning needs, or missing supplies immediately.
• Leave the room dry, neutral, orderly, and ready for the next guest.

Soaking Tubs

The soaking tubs are part of the wellness experience, but their detailed technical operation is in the Pool & Soaking Tubs playbook. Wellness remains responsible for the guest-facing coordination: knowing whether the tubs are available, explaining approved guest use, coordinating towels or refreshments, and responding when a guest reports a problem.

Guest Feedback & Service Recovery

Wellness service is personal, so small failures can feel disproportionately disruptive. Handle them quietly and without asking the guest to manage the details.

If a treatment or facility disappoints:

• Acknowledge the issue and understand what the guest expected.
• Fix the immediate problem when possible, such as changing rooms, replacing a provider, rescheduling, or taking malfunctioning equipment out of service.
• Use the broader guest-recovery authority and escalation rules rather than inventing a separate spa compensation policy.
• Record provider or facility issues in the appropriate operating record so the same failure is not repeated.
• Capture useful guest preferences or feedback in the guest record when it can improve the rest of the stay or a future visit.

Quality Control & Training

All relevant staff should be able to explain the wellness offer confidently without memorizing a sales script.

They should know:

• Which facilities are self-service and how guests access them.
• Current treatments, durations, and prices.
• What is included versus extra.
• How to request and confirm a treatment.
• Current approved providers and how to reach them internally.
• Facility locations and the guest-facing use instructions.
• Cancellation and modification rules, including any penalties.
• Gratuity treatment.

Training should include a physical walk-through of the spa, a sample treatment booking from request through confirmation, provider arrival and room setup, treatment-room turnover, and at least one scenario involving a provider cancellation or unavailable appointment.

We review provider and spa notes regularly and at least quarterly during the operating season. Repeated complaints, late arrivals, cleanliness issues, booking friction, or equipment failures should trigger a change to the provider roster, checklist, operating procedure, or guest offer rather than becoming accepted background noise.