Nature Touch Aromatherapy is expanding its spa complexes and products in China.

The spas will cost Bt5 million each and each cover 200 square metres of space with five twin treatment rooms. They will open 24 hours a day and target local and foreign business people.

Wiriya Phungsoonthorn, managing director of Nature Touch Aromatherapy, said the Guangzhou spa would open in the next six months and the Shanghai one three months later. Wiriya visited China last week to discuss spa investment possibilities with Jing Ling.

Nature Touch Aromatherapy opened a 7,000-sqm spa called Wung Shun Ghee Commercial Club in Beijing in December in partnership with Wung Shun Ghee Group, a restaurant chain in the city.

Costing around Bt250 million, it too opens round the clock and employs 80 Chinese therapists and six Thai trainers able to handle more than 300 customers a day. The charge for Thai traditional massage is Bt1,800 per hour and up to Bt9,000 for a two-hour spa course.

The Shanghai and Guangzhou spas are expected to break even in only eight months, the one in Beijing in two years.

"We should like our spas to become a key distribution channel for our spa products in China," said Wiriya, adding that China was a big market where local consumers, particularly the B-plus class, had great spending power.

Nature Touch Aromatherapy has operated spas in Thailand for almost eight years, one on Sukhumvit Soi 20 and one in the Erawan Bangkok complex at the Ratchaprasong intersection. The company makes spa products in Samut Prakan and Nakhon Pathom.

"We are getting an Australian manufacturer to subcontract our product formula and packaging for the Chinese market, which is very choosy about country of origin and would go for Australian spa products over Thai ones any day," said Wiriya, who expected production in Australia to start in a month and the goods to be on Chinese shelves a month after that.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation