It's a lively Tuesday evening at the Harrah's casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Gamblers fill the blackjack and poker tables while drinking beer and cocktails, slot machines clang in a steady rhythm, and the air holds on to traces of cigarette smoke.
Just a few hundred feet away, however, an entirely different world exists. Guests at the Red Door Spa are soaking in a waterfall-framed Jacuzzi and sipping pomegranate herbal tea on soft chaise longues around a fireplace. Soothing Zen music plays in the background and the scent of eucalyptus wafts through the rooms.
Once, this quieter, calmer side of Atlantic City would have been hard to imagine. But the city, which has spent the last several years trying to spruce up with shinier casinos, upscale hotels and dining options beyond mile-long buffets, is turning to several new splashy spas to draw visitors.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
There have been at least a half-dozen spa openings in the last two years and a handful more are in the works. So, if they can tear themselves away from the slots and tables, visitors are lured with hundreds of treatments with names like Lemon Zest, Dancing Waters and Immersion Rainforest.
Six years ago, the spa culture was almost nonexistent. Save for a few small designated spaces set aside in some casinos where on-call therapists worked a handful of treatment rooms, there were virtually no spas, said Jeffrey Vasser, president of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority. Today, places like Immersion at the Water Club, Spa Toccare at the Borgata, Vive Day Spa at the Showboat, Qua Baths & Spa at Caesars and the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa at Harrah's are luxurious, meticulously planned amenities that are major selling points of the hotels.
While they vary in size and services they are all striving to be serious destinations for spagoers, aiming for customers who want to pass an entire day getting treatments and lounging around saunas, steam rooms and swimming pools.
The spa trend started in 2003, when Spa Toccare opened at the Borgata with 15 treatment rooms and quickly became booked two months in advance. The demand for treatments was so great, said Brennan Evans, the director of spa operations, that Spa Toccare expanded to 5,016m?just two years later.
There was a handful of spa openings in the next few years, but the growth really took off in 2007 when the Elizabeth Arden Red Door opened at Harrah's. Last year, Immersion, Qua and Vive joined the lineup.
And there are more openings planned. Sea Spa at the Chelsea boutique hotel is scheduled to open in the middle of next month. The 929m?space will have exposed brick walls and rugs with animal prints, a relaxation room with heated benches and floors and a 94-degree saltwater pool. Also, at the end of next year, the Revel Entertainment Group is scheduled to open a casino hotel on the boardwalk where the spa will be a major component, a spokeswoman for the company said.
While a basic massage is the service most often booked at spas, according to the International Spa Association in Lexington, Kentucky, some services at the new Atlantic City spas go beyond the basics, and even the basics have twists.
Vive recently introduced a massage, facial and pedicure with seashells, a treatment that the spa says helps release calcium into the body. At Red Door, the manicure and pedicure stations have their own flat-screen televisions. Toccare has a dry-float soft pack, a tub with a wrap that simulates floating in water and is used as a part of several services. Immersion has a treatment room where jade stone is part of the walls, and the locker rooms at Qua are modeled after traditional Roman baths with hot and cold plunge pools.
While Atlantic City may be easier and cheaper to get to for many customers like Caliri, that doesn? mean the treatments themselves are a bargain. A 50-minute massage costs in the low three figures at most spas, and some extravagant treatments reach well into four figures. Qua, for example, offers a three-hour US$5,000 treatment called Dieci Mani: Five attendants administer an exfoliation; a hot stone massage; an Ayurvedic shirodhara treatment, in which warm oil is poured on the forehead; a chakra balancing that uses different colored stones to balance the body? energy; and a facial.
Customers go home with US$1,500 in skin-care products and a US$1,000 bag from one of the Pier Shops, like Louis Vuitton or Gucci.
The couples' treatments at Immersion start at US$550, and the least expensive manicure at Red Door is US$27. Most places add an additional 20 percent gratuity, which guests usually have the option of adjusting.
But even in the slowed economy, and even at those prices, most spas say that bookings are up or holding steady. Jackie Moyers, the assistant general manager of Red Door, said that business was up between 5 percent and 10 percent last month from the same month last year and that weekends were still booked to capacity.
Spas tend to stay strong in slow economic times, International Spa Association president Lynne McNees said.
?fter 9/11, people flocked to spas in record numbers and we're finding that they're still going now,?she said. ?hey may cut down on the length of treatment they get, but they have a psychological need of wanting to be nurtured during stressful periods.?br />
The steady bookings, however, did come at a cost for some spas. Those that noticed a slowdown recently introduced discounts, spa directors said. Spa Toccare, for example, still sells out on the weekends, but it introduced a 50-minute US$99 massage Sunday through Thursday ?a 20 percent discount from the usual price ?to bolster weekday bookings. And Qua is offering a different sale every month, like one next month that offers a 50-minute massage, body exfoliation or facial for US$99. That? between 40 percent and 65 percent off the usual price.
While Immersion did not lower costs, it introduced the option of 50-minute treatments in November, shorter than the previous 80-minute minimum, to offer less-expensive choices. Both the Water Club, where Immersion is located, and Borgata, home of Spa Toccare, are jointly owned by MGM Mirage and Boyd Gaming.
Nonetheless, Immersion is perhaps the most deluxe of the spas. The 3,344m?space is on the top two levels of the Water Club and has a glass-enclosed pool with views of the city and ocean. Items from a menu created by the chef Geoffrey Zakarian can be served at a poolside chaise longue or table.
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