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Published on February 10, 2008

A nursing qualification, says Kisana Ruangsri, can be a passport to the best things in life. Though no longer practising, she's come to believe "once a nurse, always a nurse".

She's now an airline cabin-attendant, but when she's high in the sky she feels like a nurse trapped in an airhostess' body. She's also the director of Bangkok's Divana Spa chain, and when she's on the ground she feels like a businesswoman who has a nurse inside of her trying to get free.

It's not that she doesn't like her multifaceted career. Kisana is just perplexed at how the nurse inside her blends so well into the modern corporate world. She now realises that nursing can be just as useful beyond the hospital ward.

Nursing is very tourist-friendly too, she says.

Kisana, a native of northern Lampang province, has been a high-flying Swiss Air attendant for 10 years and meanwhile manages her Divana Spa's three branches, all in the Sukhumvit area. Armed with a "play hard" attitude to life, she has a knack for multitasking - and smiling a lot.

"Time is the only thing you can't buy, so I spend my time doing only what I truly love," she says. "I play hard as an airhostess and a businesswoman. If I didn't enjoy what I was doing there'd be no point."

Kisana, 38, has found success early in life, something she attributes to the mature thinking that was moulded in her formative years in the American educational system.

After earning her nursing degree in the US, she joined the medical team that attended to a Middle Eastern princess who was living in Los Angeles. Her stepfather was a former LA police officer who was a bodyguard for the sultanate's royal family.

Kisana spent the next five years criss-crossing the world as part of the princess' entourage, and in the process learned a great deal about the best clothing fashion and spa treatments in the world. All members of the nursing team got to try out the spas that the princess visited.

"Over time I developed a passion for spa pampering, and seeing how the best spas in the world are run proved to be of great use in my own business venture."

Kisana returned to Thailand at age 28 and joined Swiss Air, where her nursing experience was of special interest. Again, she was exposed to a wide variety of spa experiences at the luxurious hotels where Swiss Air crew members stayed during layovers.

The Swiss, she learned, also love to be pampered.

She began studying different spa therapies with an eye to opening a spa of her own, and then, with Bt1 million in start-up funds, provided in part by a fellow air steward, Kisana launched Baan Sawasdee on Lat Phrao Road.

With five service rooms and 11 beds, it targeted a specific niche market - airline staff.

"Our service needed to be very well organised because our clients follow specific timetables," she says. "Within a few years the business was a stunning success. I had captains from different airlines coming in for a simple back massage."

There was, however, a big, waiting market of high-end spa lovers, including foreign tourists and well-off Thais, so Kisana and five other Swiss Air attendants started Divana Spa six years ago.

Today there is Divana Massage & Spa on Sukhumvit Soi 25, Divana Nurture Spa on  Soi 35 and Divana Divine Spa on Soi 55, and at Siam Paragon Kisana has just opened the first shop selling Divana products.

About 90 per cent of the customers are tourists from Hong Kong and Europe, and all expect a high-quality Thai spa experience.

Kisana stresses the "Thainess" factor with home-grown herbs, therapists trained in local etiquette and a generous helping of Thai hospitality.

"Our staff smile a lot - the smile is a rarity in Europe. We treat every client as a VIP. A good 'service mind' means giving positive energy to our customers. I personally train my staff in the art of Thai hospitality, as well as the basics of human anatomy, using my nursing knowledge.

"As for the products, the wealth of herbs in our country make great ingredients. We have green tea from Chiang Rai, though we use essential oil from France. We stress the use of non-chemical products."

For Kisana, Divana Spa's success underscores Thailand's potential to become Asia's "wellbeing capital". The local spa industry, which she says has a good reputation overseas, simply needs standardisation, quality and credibility, and the government would do well to support it and ensure high standards.

"Spa lovers, Thai and foreign, treat spas not just as a place to relax, but to please their cosmetic concerns too. And with new technologies, like lasers, being introduced, we need to ensure that high safety standards are maintained," Kisana says.

Sound advice. Not every spa has as the boss a qualified nurse who's travelled the world and seen the best.

Manote Tripathi

The Nation