Meet Marty Langenderfer, founder and CEO of Spavia (which currently has more than 60 locations in 25 states across the U.S.), who shares insight into the success of the franchise spa and massage business.
Can you tell me a little bit about Spavia spas?
Spavia was built around the idea that wellness should be part of your routine rather than an occasional luxury experience. My wife Allison and I founded Spavia in 2005, and today we operate more than 60 locations nationwide. From the beginning, our vision was to create an affordable luxury experience that combined high-quality treatments, personalization, and an accessible membership model that guests could realistically maintain long term. We’ve spent over 20 years building a model centered around consistency, relationships, and making wellness approachable without sacrificing experience.
To what do you attribute the spa franchise’s success? What makes the spas stand out from the competition?
To us, the success of Spavia comes from an intense focus on hospitality, training, and long-term guest relationships rather than simply growth for the sake of growth. We’re not focused on the number of spas. We’re focused on helping elevate the standards of the industry itself. That means becoming one of the strongest hospitality and training organizations in wellness through deeper education, certifications, operational standards, and clearer long-term career paths for our guest advisors, massage therapists, and estheticians.
We believe the future winners in wellness will be the brands that deliver exceptional experiences consistently at scale, and that starts with people. Our spas are locally owned and operated by highly engaged entrepreneurs who are deeply connected within their neighborhood, and that creates a level of hospitality, care, accountability, and consistency that’s difficult to replicate nationally.
When you combine strong local ownership, operational consistency, continuous learning, and a culture centered around hospitality, it creates a very differentiated experience within the spa industry.
What have been the biggest challenges in growing the spa franchise?
One of the biggest challenges in growing the spa industry is talent development, training, and creating stronger long-term career paths across the profession. As consumer expectations continue to rise, the industry needs to continue elevating hospitality standards, technical training, and professionalism across every role. That’s why we’re investing heavily in deeper certifications across all skill sets, stronger hospitality training, and clearer career development paths, especially for guest advisors, which we ultimately believe can expand into resort environments.
A big part of that commitment was launching St. Moritz Massage Academy two years ago. The goal is to help build and train our future talent pipeline while also elevating the perception and professionalism of massage therapy and wellness careers more broadly. We intentionally called it an academy because we believe these professions deserve a higher level of respect, education, and long-term career opportunity within the industry.
What prompted any recent renovations and what did it involve?
As the brand has evolved over the past 20 years, we’ve continued refining both the guest experience and the physical environments to better reflect changing wellness trends, consumer behaviors, and local market needs.
One of the ways that evolution has taken shape is through four distinct design thematics that franchise owners can select from based on their local community: Mountain, Coastal, Vineyard, and Sway, our urban-inspired concept. Each aesthetic was thoughtfully developed to give owners flexibility while still maintaining the overall integrity and consistency of the Spavia brand experience.
We opened the first Sway location in Denver in February 2025 as a more urban wellness concept focused on younger consumers, recovery, and technology-driven wellness experiences. This summer, we’re expanding into two larger Sway footprints in Denver where we’ll continue testing and refining the concept further. That includes broader recovery offerings, larger social wellness spaces, and different wellness modalities including both infrared and traditional sauna concepts. A large part of our philosophy is continuous testing, learning, and evolving the experience thoughtfully as consumer wellness behavior continues to change.
How do you attract new and repeat clients and encourage them to visit?
A large part of attracting both new and repeat guests comes from consistency of experience, word of mouth, and being deeply embedded within the local community surrounding each spa. Our franchise owners are highly involved in their neighborhoods through local partnerships, community events, wellness initiatives, and ongoing relationship-building, which over time creates deep long-term relationships and very loyal local followings.
Our membership model also plays a significant role. Because guests visit regularly rather than occasionally, we’re able to build much stronger relationships over time and become part of their ongoing wellness routine rather than a one-time experience. That consistency creates a much deeper level of trust, personalization, and guest connection.
We also invest a significant amount of energy into listening and feedback systems across the organization. Because we see many guests on a recurring basis, we’re constantly gathering insights around preferences, treatment interests, service expectations, and evolving wellness behaviors. That feedback loop plays a major role in how we continue evolving the guest experience. We combine nearly 20 years of spa expertise with continuous guest input to refine, elevate, and modernize the Spavia experience while still maintaining the hospitality and consistency the brand is known for.”
How do you use digital marketing and social media to boost business?
Digital marketing has become one of the most powerful tools for creating highly personalized wellness experiences before a guest even walks through the door. As technology and AI continue to evolve, we believe the future of wellness marketing will become increasingly tailored and data-driven, allowing brands to better understand individual guest behaviors, preferences, routines, and treatment interests in a much more granular way.
At Spavia, we focus heavily on localized digital marketing strategies that allow each spa to authentically connect with its surrounding community while still benefiting from the scale and sophistication of a national brand. Social media plays an important role in storytelling, education, and showcasing the real people behind our spas, but we also invest significantly in digital infrastructure, guest data insights, search behavior, retention marketing, and personalized communication strategies designed to meet guests where they are in their wellness journey.
How do you keep your staff selling? How do you keep your staff motivated?
Our philosophy has always been centered around helping guests build consistent wellness routines and long-term relationships with the spa. Because we operate a membership-based model, our estheticians, massage therapists, and guest advisors see guests regularly over time rather than through one-time transactions. That allows the teams to better understand individual relaxation, skincare, and recovery goals and make more thoughtful, personalized recommendations naturally through trust and familiarity.
How do you keep the treatment menu fresh and relevant?
We’ve always believed innovation matters, but we try to approach it thoughtfully and with long-term discipline rather than simply chasing trends. We combine nearly 20 years of operational experience with constant guest feedback, treatment performance data, and ongoing education to continually evolve the menu in a way that feels modern, relevant, and operationally sustainable.
We were one of the first spa brands in the country to introduce seasonal treatments, which helped create a more dynamic experience for both guests and teams. It keeps the menu feeling fresh while also giving estheticians and massage therapists continuous opportunities to learn new ingredients, protocols, and treatment experiences throughout the year. We also spend a significant amount of time listening. We pay close attention to guest feedback, changing wellness behaviors, and where the industry is evolving long term. That has led us to expand beyond traditional spa treatments into more recovery and wellness-focused experiences including sauna, cold plunge, compression therapy, LED light therapy, microcurrent, and other technology-driven offerings.
We were also one of the first spa brands in the country to introduce Aescape robotic massage technology. We don’t view this technology as replacing human touch, but as an opportunity to introduce new consumers to massage, and continue evolving what the modern wellness experience can look like.
What are your plans for the future?
Our goal is to continue positioning Spavia as one of the most credible, trusted, and operationally sophisticated brands within the spa industry by combining exceptional hospitality, thoughtful innovation, strong franchise ownership, and long-term guest relationships at scale. We believe there is a significant opportunity to elevate standards within wellness as the industry has become increasingly fragmented, trend-driven, and transactional in many areas. Ultimately, we believe consumers are looking for brands they can trust consistently over time.
We’ve also been very intentional about growth. Our philosophy has always centered around thoughtful expansion and protecting the integrity of the guest experience as the brand evolves. With that approach, we currently have more than 10 new locations planned to open within the next year.
In June, we will also be announcing the appointment of a chief operating officer as Spavia continues growing its national footprint, deepening franchisee support systems, expanding its membership base across existing and new markets, and beginning to evaluate long-term international expansion opportunities.