Increasingly, spas are wielding influence on meeting breaks and catering. Healthy items are cropping up on banquet menus, while stretching exercises and mini treatments offered during breaks are ensuring that attendees will stay awake and focused during the next session.
At Enchantment Resort in Sedona, a full menu of cuisine developed by its Mii amo Spa is available for group meals and breaks, says Lindsay Curry, Enchantment’s director of sales.
“It’s not just a lemongrass and scallop type of meal, but cuisine that is both healthy and filling,” she says. “And it serves a variety of dietary needs, including gluten-free and vegan. This is a personal side to events that more organizations are recognizing—you can’t have a one-size-fits-all menu for everybody.”
In particular, Enchantment’s spa influence is applied to breakfast menus and meeting breaks, which can feature a variety of juices and smoothies with supplements geared to ease jet lag or boost the immune system, she adds.
“We also encourage stretching or yoga during breaks to help people stay energized and focused,” she says.
At The Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain, food and beverage items created for the spa are also a part of catering options, says Michael Kass, director of sales and marketing.
“A spa-inspired continental breakfast is often served to groups, with inclusions determined by the same chef who created our spa cuisine menu,” he says. “It includes such items as acai-blueberry juice and agave-lime yogurt parfaits with granola—which are amazingly good.”
The spa also offers indoor or outdoor chair massage during meeting breaks, he says, which can be set up at the meetings registration desk.
At L’Auberge de Sedona, a new spa pool menu, which is available for group meals and breaks, offers items that reflect its specialty spa treatments, says Maria DeSimone, the property’s spa director.
“For example, we’re offering a ginger-lime sorbet that reflects one of our most popular spa offerings, a ginger-lime scrub,” she says.