East Day Spa Blog

Ina Bajaj, Director of East Day Spa

To kick off the East Day Spa Blog, Director Ina Bajaj writes about the early days in the life of East’s successful line of luxury spas.

I was getting a facial in a beauty parlor in the Juhu area of western Mumbai when the idea came to me. All around me Indian women were getting oil baths on their long, shiny black hair. Steam rose up into the air.

It was 1997, and I had just sold the restaurant I’d been running for 10 years, The Curry Club in Wellington. I was looking for my next project.

By then I’d spent years travelling throughout Asia and India, and I had developed a deep appreciation for Eastern therapies and beauty rituals.

Sometimes it takes a nice facial to make things clear. That’s how it was for me on that day in that beauty parlor in Mumbai.

All of a sudden, I saw it. I should do the thing I love. I should bring all the therapies I adored back with me to Wellington.

I decided to pick and choose the bits from each Asian culture I’d grown to love over the years – the Indian massage called Kady Vasty, Thai massages with yoga stretches and acupressure, Ayurvedic eye treatments, and manicures with warm milk and sandalwood oil.

Of course, there were some things I’d leave behind. I recall a particular massage surrounded by biting mosquitoes at an Ayurvedic resort in Kerala. The food there  was awful, the sheets smelt, and even I began to smell the same before I left. That was one experience I certainly did not want to reproduce.

The first spa

After looking at many sites around Wellington, we selected a location in Thorndon Quay. It was the site of the old probation offices, and looked nothing like a spa. We worked with Hemandra Solanki from Tse Group, his first spa project, to transform the space into a haven of serenity.

It was a bit like transforming a lawn mower into a Ferrari, but somehow we pulled it off.

That first spa opened in Wellington in August 2002 under the name East Spa and Yoga. We had recruited two therapists from the Golden Palms in Bangalore, and one yoga teacher from South India. My sister-in-law and I worked the front desk.

I’ll never forget the terrible sinking feeling I had at the end of our first day of trading. We had provided one single 30-minute Kady Vasty massage. There was a staggering grand total of $35 in the till.

I felt all of my dreams going up in smoke – or spa steam, as the case may be.

The only silver lining was that our one client had loved his Kady Vasty so much he rebooked for later that week.

That first year was very hard, and we struggled to make ends meet. We had no budget for marketing so we relied on word of mouth. I believed that if we focused on providing a fantastic service, people would tell their friends. Fortunately that approach worked, and our numbers started to grow. But the growth in those early days was unbearably slow.

Darkest before the dawn

In February 2003, I turned 40. I was broke and single with a struggling business. I felt I had absolutely nothing to celebrate.

To make matters even worse, our yogi had suffered a bad case of culture shock. The poor guy just couldn’t cope with the scantily clad clients in front of him, and he’d gone screaming back to India.

In spite of all of this, I was unwilling to give up. I knew from our customers that we were providing a service people truly appreciated.

Around then I travelled to Bali for the very first time. I needed a break. That was when my love affair with Bali and the Balinese people began.

During that trip, we recruited Arie, our first Balinese therapist. As a result, we began to expand our services more towards a Balinese influence. Arie was a huge hit, as were the beautiful Oriental therapies she brought with her.

With our culture-shocked yogi gone, we converted the empty yoga room into a large relaxation area. Our clients absolutely loved it.

That year the Wellington spa went from strength to strength. More and more clients came through our doors, and they left feeling happy, satisfied, and relaxed.

Auckland and beyond

At the beginning of 2004, I was out eating yum char with friends when I received a call from SKYCITY Entertainment Group.

The voice on the other end of the phone said, “We were wondering if you’d be interested in operating your spa at our five-star Grand Hotel.”

I nearly choked on my dumpling.

A week later, I was meeting with SKYCITY executives and negotiations began. We rebranded as East Day Spa, and we opened in Auckland on 1 June 2005. It was a great success.

Throughout 2005 to 2008 our customer base grew, our staff levels increased, and our link with Bali got stronger. We soon had 11 Balinese therapists and we were also bringing in product from Bali.

The East Day Spa love affair with that gorgeous island was even more cemented when we fell in love with a beautiful two-acre piece of land overlooking a tropical rainforest and river. In January 2009 East Residence and Spa opened in Bali.

East Day Spa Melbourne

Then, after having firmly established our reputation for authentic Eastern-style massages and luxury beauty treatments in Wellington, Auckland and Bali, we opened a new location in February 2010 at The InterContinental Melbourne The Rialto. This has been a perfect fit for us as we continue to expand in the Asia-Pacific region.

All in all, the growth of East Day Spa has been a fantastic journey.

After all these years our aim remains the same as it was when the idea first came to me during that facial in Mumbai: to establish an environment of calm and serenity where people can take time out for both their physical and mental well-being.

I’m happy to say we’re still providing that.

How was your very first experience at East Day Spa? Leave a comment below to let us know.

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