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Interview with Josephine Leung, Architect of GOCO Hospitality’s Design
What characterizes your spas in terms of construction and design? How do you select materials to create your spas? How do you embody the spirit of the spa brands ?
GOCO Hospitality is a wellness hospitality consulting and management company that creates luxurious spas and wellness environments offering holistic wellness experiences and connecting its guests with the culture and nature of their surroundings. This supports our vision to create, innovate and operate tomorrow’s hospitality concepts.
We begin every project by defining its core spa and wellness concept, which is personalized for every project, reflects the local culture and history and is designed to cater to the target market’s needs. The core spa and wellness concept provides the base for developing a comprehensive guest journey that stimulates the guest’s senses and enables our team members to provide attentive and anticipative service.
When designing our spas and retreats, we place great importance on creating a holistic guest journey that starts when the guest arrives, continues through their treatment and finishes only after the guest left the facility. Some of the USPs that differentiate our GOCO Spas and GOCO Retreats include: Luxury Spa Suites, purpose-built heat and water experiences, a Medi-Spa, dedicated male grooming and a beauty salon as well as mind and body studios.
Frankfurt’s SPA entrance
We aim to enhance the wellness journey of our guests through sensory experiences and create these in collaboration with award-winning artists, cinematographers and photographers, including Louie Schwartzberg and Gregory Colbert. An example would be Louie Schwartzberg’s moving art pieces in the Bathhouse of our GOCO Retreat Niutuo in China.
I believe the differentiating factor for our GOCO Spas and GOCO Retreats is that each project is authentic, custom-made and the physical spaces are designed with the needs for operational excellence in mind; this makes them not only visually appealing but also efficient. An example of this would be our specification of using natural wood flooring in all treatment areas, which not only provides a warm interior look but most importantly connects the therapists to the ground for better energy ‘chi’ flow when providing treatments.
Another example is the intuitive design of our treatment rooms, which specifies that the millwork is within an arms reach so that the therapist can use one hand, without leaving the guest’s body for quality service. The use of diffuse lighting and indirect air-conditioned spaces optimizes the guests’ comfort.
The interdisciplinary collaboration between finance, design and operation right from the beginning of the project development is the key to long-term success for a luxury spa and wellness facility.
Yoga Garden (Venice)
Laurent Delporte, an editor and conference speaker, is a strategic expert in the sector of hotels. A visionary, he brings his unique look on hotels in service to the decision-makers in the industry, whether to enhance the development of new projects or strategic visions.
Laurent has visited and audited over 350 hotels across the world and also participates in mystery visits to provide quality control for the world’s finest hotels.
