HEALING PLACES:
SPAS OF THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST
Story and photography
by Margaret & Eric Anderson

Americans have changed their vacation patterns over the years. They're flying less and driving more -- especially for distances less than 200 miles. They're taking shorter trips and trying to bring more variety into vacations and struggling to make better contact with nature and looking for ways to improve their lives.

The biggest change in tourism, it turns out, is in the spa industry. It's now bigger than the ski business. And it's not dependent on snow. But capricious Mother Nature has nothing to do with the increase in spas across the United States -- about 5,000 new spas opened in 2001. The upsurge comes mainly because the Baby Boomers are aging and don't like it. And their determination to do something about it is making full service destination resorts develop or expand spa amenities.

The aging Boomers aren't too interested in the Mom and Pop little places stuck behind a pharmacy or in the back of a nail salon. They don't particularly want to lie, like one of us in this photo taken in Calistoga, in some questionable tub of what looks (and smells) suspiciously like compost. Friends in the Society of American Travel Writers remark the contents of those tubs may not be changed till a week has gone by with who knows what emissions from assorted guests. Nor do the Boomers find hot healing wraps cool, wraps that use local bits and pieces for effect. One told us she asked for a Kona Coffee wrap on the Big Island of Hawaii but halfway through remembered she was "allergic to coffee." The spa attendant hushed her with the encouragement that the spa used only decaffeinated coffee!

Yet spas in the United States had 95 million visits last year -- according to the International Spa Association. They generated $5 billion in revenue. The spas are blooming like cacti in all our areas west of the Rockies. Arizona, long a haven of the older age group, is especially gearing up to get its share of this lucrative business particularly if, as a side benefit, it helps its people stay healthy. In Tucson 50 miles south of Phoenix, for example, Canyon Ranch Spa and Miraval are already internationally known and now a full service Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa has opened at the Westin La Paloma with 18 treatment rooms competing with the Jack Nicklaus golf course.