The Calicéo strategy, an ambitious wellness center development

Calicéo wellness centers were taken over in 2018. The Lyon branch was the subject of a technical visit during Piscine Global Europe 2016. Since then, it has been restructured! According to a recent interview in La Tribune Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes newspaper, its primary objectives are to extend their client base and customer typology. These are the challenges faced by many managers, who sometimes don’t know where to start! We talked to Calicéo President Marc Léonard who explains his group’s strategy and provides valuable advice applicable to all pool and wellness centers.

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An ambitious development that started in France and will then be rolled out internationally

Calicéo currently operates six wellness centers in France - and is looking to open more internationally! A major challenge for the group which set out to identify specificities for each target zone. Marc Léonard told us about this deployment and the adaptation of Calicéo’s philosophy:

“The Calicéo concept attracted over 1,200,000 customers to our wellness centers in 2018. The trend this year is encouraging and confirms that our development ambitions in France are well founded. We have been working for several months on the opening of new centers in the future by identifying zones with potential in France and abroad where we are having fruitful discussions.

We study each market where we intend to set up to understand how it works and its characteristics, as we did for the French market to adapt our model whenever necessary. For example, some spa equipment like saunas is more popular in Northern Europe. We want to conserve Calicéo’s DNA and base our offer on 3 services - wellbeing, fitness and health. To bring this project to a successful conclusion, we identify the talents we have in-house and concentrate on how we should organize for tomorrow.”

If this strategy proceeds as envisaged, the Calicéo group should double the number of wellness centers over the next 4 or 5 years and garner 50 million euros in sales.

Calicéo’s growth is focused on fitness and wellbeing

Trends identified at Piscine Global Europe 2018, health and wellbeing are currently the most profitable niche markets for pool and wellness centers due to the aquafitness boom. But it is possible to go even further, thanks to the many spa innovations in wellbeing and health equipment on which Calicéo is counting to implement in its strategy. 

“It is a logical evolution of Calicéo’s current offer. Wellbeing and health are closely related. We organized aquagym sessions when Calicéo started and have always innovated in this field. We introduced aquabiking a few years ago and today we propose aquapilates. The idea is to propose a global offer in which each and everyone, men and women, young and less young, will find the Calicéo moment right for them to relax, get back into shape, recover from intensive training or an operation.

For that we are backed by professionals who train and accompany our teams all year long and we identify new or tried and tested methods to attain corporal and spiritual wellbeing. These gradually join and supplement our existing services.”

New services include activities like Pilates floating in water and musical naps, as well as health-related spa innovations like halotherapy (therapy by salt), hot/cold therapy for blood circulation and postnatal cures. A vast program!

What spa animations can you organize in your wellness center to be different?

Wellness center user diversification is vital

75% of wellness centers customers are active women. Infrequently targeted, seniors and male customers are increasingly promising wellness users. The diversification of users is always essential in development strategies and Calicéo’s is no exception!
 

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© Céline Hamelin - Calicéo of Toulouse

“Wellbeing is a hot topic in society in general. We ran studies to find out what every category of our customers wanted and did works to extend our offer and tailor our services to their needs.

Calicéo wants to be a place dedicated to wellbeing accessible to all, but tastes differ. We know, for example, that seniors are more interested in personalized assistance and specific services and that men are more interested in sports than relaxation. With our teams, we have developed new packages adapted to these customers’ needs.”

To back its new positioning, Calicéo has developed partnerships with frontline sports clubs to provide their players with muscle therapy. This diversification implies acquiring the right equipment, but fortunately the wellness sector abounds in spa innovations sure to attract these new users!

Find out what users want before initiating 
a positioning change in your wellness center!

Calicéo’s ambitious and inspiring strategy opens a new page for the development of the company in France and internationally. Check out our wellness articles to learn more about retargeting your wellness center services and suggestions for spa innovations on which to capitalize.

© Photo credit: Céline Hamelin