asK tHe exPert davId edWards by Kelly HeItz
zeel ' s dave edwards accepting the Innovator of the year award from IsPa vice chairman todd Hewitt. earlier this year, IsPa members were encouraged to submit innovations to be considered for an IsPa Innovate award in one of six categories: experiences, leadership, philanthropy, products, technology & equipment, and treatments. All submissions were distributed to the ISPA membership and each member organization had the opportunity to vote for their favorite initiatives. The 15 submissions that received the most member votes were designated the 2017 ISPA Innovate Award Winners and recognized at the 2017 ISPA Conference & Expo during Wednesday’ s General Session.
For the first time since the Innovate Awards began, an Innovation of the year award was presented. This award was voted on by the Awards Committee from the 15 Innovate Award winners as the most ground- breaking and worthy of recognition as the most innovative. It’ s no surprise that the biggest innovator is a company that is working to solve one of the biggest problems in the spa industry.
With over 33,000 open jobs in the U. S. spa industry, staffing has become a true problem. The zeel Spa platform permits spas to fill sudden requests, to cover unexpected absences by staff massage therapists, or to meet surges in demand for busy time periods. These appointments are covered with prevetted, five-star standard trained, licensed zeel Massage Therapists.
“ zeel Spa has been a huge benefit to the spa industry,” said Samer Hamadeh, zeel’ s CEo, in the october issue of Pulse magazine.“ Spas historically have severe staffing issues due to lack of qualified massage therapists available at peak times, or to lastminute callouts by therapists. With zeel Spa, that supply-demand imbalance is all a thing of the past.”
The zeel Spa platform is tech-enabled, online and easy to set up and use. Thanks to zeel Spa, spas have been able to recapture revenue that would have been previously lost.
For this month’ s Ask the Expert, we sat down with zeel’ s vice president of spa partnerships, davId edWards, to find out why zeel chose to cater to spas, what winning this prestigious award means for the company, and what the future of spa looks like for innovators in the industry.
Pulse: What does Zeel contribute to the spa industry? Edwards: The Zeel Spa platform empowers spas to meet spikes in demand for massage and cover last-minute staff therapist callouts, helping spas reach budgeted revenue goals and improve client service. Zeel also helps its network of massage therapists optimize their own availability, by offering bookings at highquality spas.
P: What does winning the Innovator of the Year Award mean to you? E: It’ s an honor to be validated by the market that Zeel Spa caters to, and it is further confirmation that Zeel’ s technology and network are bringing something truly groundbreaking to the spa industry.
64 PULSE ■ December 2017