Mia A. Mackman

Consulting Experience

Mia A. Mackman has more than 25 years of beauty, spa, and wellness industry experience. Ms. Mackman is the principal and founder of Mackman|ES, a comprehensive, future-ready wellness and spa consultancy and HVS, Managing Director of their Spa and Wellness Consulting division. She specializes in market foresight, strategy, consulting, asset repositioning, financial projections, and facility development. In partnership with HVS, Ms. Mackman provides the spa-and-wellness consulting services for HVS’s global client network, including market and feasibility studies, valuation narratives, and data analysis.

With extensive consulting experience, Ms. Mackman has been successfully forecasting value and demand propositions since 2004. She works with global investment firms, hotel and mixed-use property developers, and hospitality organizations. She contributes as an industry expert to global think-tanks, international business reports, and improving global industry standards.

Based in Sedona, Arizona, Ms. Mackman is recognized for her industry knowledge and her propensity to foresee imperative hospitality market shifts. This supports her broad client base to effectively navigate, adapt, and excel in a fast-changing market. She contributes as an industry expert to international news organizations, annual business reports, and private club publications. She also participates in academic studies, wellness tourism, sustainability and consumer innovation projects.

In the spirit of collaboration, Ms. Mackman, is Founder & President of the Arizona Spa & Wellness Association. She formed the Association in 2012 to create a platform in Arizona for connectivity, education and industry growth. Mia is an Official Visiting Judge for the World Spa & Wellness Awards, a global award platform based in London, UK. These awards are one of the leading honors in the industry. They acknowledge the excellence of care, service, and standards, aiming to inspire spas around the world, and serving to raise global industry standards.

Ms. Mackman has been a member of the Hotel Business Review Editorial Board for Hotel Executive since 2016. She also leads the discussions of HospitalityNet’s World Panel titled Wellness, Lifestyle and Spa as panel Champ and contributing expert. This panel examines how these segments of the industry contribute to hospitality value proposition growth and impact the leisure, tourism and business economy. The objective of the panel is to provide high-level, experienced, and diverse industry viewpoints on topics ranging from investment and development to industry trends, strategic planning and operational performance.
 

Responsibilities

Providing HVS Spa and Wellness consulting services including:

Hotel, Resort, Mixed-Use and Stand-Alone Facilities

• Comprehensive Market and Feasibility Studies
• Investment and Cost Projections
• KPIs, USPs, Global and Local Demographics
• Competive Supply and Demand Analysis
• Service and Program Recommendations 
• Financial Feasibility and Performance Analysis
• Highest and Best Use for Strategic Planning

Performance Analysis and Valuation Support

• Competitive Market Analysis
• Operational and Financial Inspections 
• Performance and Asset Value Narrative
• Property Conversion and Improvement Assessments
• Revenue Forecasting and Growth

Operation and Financial Inspections

• Performance and Operation Review
• Annual Budget Review
• Benchmark Compliance and Program Efficiency
• Critical Path for Improvements
• Consulting and Project Development

Authored Publications

Building Loyalty with Intergenerational Spa and Wellness Programs
Hotel Business Review
Growth in travel and tourism continues to rise in conjunction with intergenerational lifestyles, shifting values and increasing wellness keynotes. Every generation has unique preferences and imperatives that set them apart and stick. Accounting for nearly half of the population, Millennials and Generation Z have considerable weight in the market share. This article examines perceived values vs. core values and the benefits of incorporating a multi-generational, multi-faceted approach to spa and wellness programming to enhance customer spend and loyalty.

Reorganizing Spa Operations to Leverage Automation and Technology
Hotel Business Review
Technology and automation are making exponential headway touching nearly all sectors of hospitality, including spa and wellness. This article reviews the impact and importance of integrating these systematizations to help stimulate and streamline the functionality and profitability of hotel and resort spa operations. Retooling the focus from manually centered services and embracing advancements in new technologies to support sustainable profitability and continued growth.

Key Drivers of Hotel and Resort Profitability
Hotel Business Review
The global spa movement, which includes wellness tourism, amounts to upwards of $3 trillion dollars per year. What are physical and strategic elements key to driving bottom-line performance at traditional and wellness-focused spas?

Tech Talk
World Spa and Wellness
One of the biggest challenges we face as an industry at the moment is keeping a constant flow of new members coming into the workforce, to ensure we’re replenishing our talent pool. This need is evidenced from the education stage through to spa management, as well as technical training for treatment providers. The spa and wellness sector has grown at an unprecedented rate over the last decade, which has made it more difficult to manage day-to-day operations and deploy new innovations. 

Substance and Simplicity
Professional Spa & Wellness
The Farm-to-Bottle Phenomenon. It’s easy to mistake the surmounting energy around organic and natural products and services as a trend. However, there are no longer trendsetting whims. These aspects have fully moved into a thriving new market segment that reflects the dominating shift in consumer preferences, lifestyle choices and increasing awareness. 

Better Together
Professional Spa & Wellness
How to expand your business outside of the spa and wellness arena with new value propositions, smart partnerships, and long-term goals.

Where Do Spas Fit: Wellness Tourism or Medical Tourism

The Future of Evolution and Lifestyle
Enjoy Beauty International
The task of balancing our freedom and flexibility will become essential. New tools will endure to help people cope, manage busy routines, and assist in performance, metrics and business management. Some of these new technologies already include 3-D printing, holographic imaging and an expansive line of virtual reality and wellness devices. Wearable devices are only the beginning of technology merging with our biology and lifestyle.

The Future of Club Wellness
Private Club Advisor
A feature on the future wellness assets and amenities for 2015 in the private club market. Leading edge elements that are driving wellness, profitability, change, and holism into the private club market. How and why these will be long lasting, high impact and add value to the club market.

Capitalizing on Arizona's Thriving Spa and Wellness Industry
AZ Business Magazine
Arizona businesses are well positioned to capitalize on the development and growth of the spa and wellness marketplace. Once considered an amenity, the demand for spa and wellness experiences has grown exponentially over the last ten years.

Membership Wellness Integration
Private Club Advisor
How to integrate wellness into the club environment and strategic advantages that lead to long-term and sustainable membership benefits.

Forward to the Future
Professional Spa & Wellness
Changes set to hit the industry in 2015 and beyond. Including necessary adaptions, corporate wellness, hybrid services, and multisensory treatments and applications with a focus on technological advances, prevention, and lifestyle management.

Wellness Amenities and New Club Programming
Private Club Advisor
A New Level of Luxury in Club Life. How to integrate new wellness amenities into a private club and community setting. Key points include new factors driving this increasing demand, How to choose the right wellness amenities based on the property environment, Popular wellness and prevention offerings and ways to protect your ROI on making the investment to add this new programming.

The Value of Multiculturalism
Increasing multicultural, global demographics, bringing to light a greater awareness among industry and consumers the scope of specialized treatments and conditions related to ethnic skincare. Featuring ways this rapidly evolving market segment warrants our attention both as an industry and as an informed market.

Travel Trends, Conscious Travel
With the travel industry diversifying, more spas and resorts around the world are catering to a new kind of tourist. A growing number of people are seeking more depth and consciousness in choosing their vacation experiences. This article features travel rich with experiential new trends and what we can expect to become pivotal new travel motivations.

Technology Test
Professional Spa & Wellness
This article features new technologies with an emphasis on multi-sensory technologies including, light, color, sound, vibration, and frequency. Identifying new consumer interests in energy and technology, which are designed and developed to deliver both incredible experiences and added health benefits

Global Wellness in Sedona, Arizona
Sedona's unique environment and the synergy of life, health and energetic sustenance as a renowned global wellness destination.

The Value of Associations
Professional Spa & Wellness

Choosing Wellness: My personal journey to wellbeing
Professional Spa & Wellness

A Market in Transition
Professional Spa & Wellness
 

Testimonials

"Mia has been an absolute pleasure to work with. Her knowledge and experience in the spa and wellness industry are unrivaled. Coupled with her energy and enthusiasm, it’s an amazing combination that’s unmatched. She’s been passionate and excited about the Amherst Quarry Hotel and Spa project and has been an integral addition to the HVS package. Her report and teamwork with the HVS team have brought it to another level.” 
     - Justin Lichter, Vice President IRG Realty Advisors

"Initially I was hesitant given HVS' previously limited know-how in spa related valuations. But I can testify that the work, efficiency and thorough, in-depth analysis of the valuation done by Mia Mackman and Katy Black, for Glen Ivy Hot Springs, California in January 2018 is a fabulous example of true professional work on a complex 85 acre, mixed-use project on the outskirts of Orange County. It was a true pleasure to work with them. Thank you."
     - Ingo Schweder, CEO GOCO Hospitality

"Collaborating with Mia has been a pleasure. Her passion and breadth of knowledge in spa and wellness is clearly reflected in the quality of her work. She delivers honest and supportable results and feedback that clients appreciate."
     - Brian Bisema, HVS, Managing Director, Partner 

"HVS would not have won the second phase of an assignment if it weren’t for Mia’s resume and service offerings.  Mia worked with HVS Minneapolis on a market study for a proposed hospitality project which included recommendation of spa and wellness facilities for a very targeted audience, in addition to demand forecasts and income and expense modeling that we incorporated into our financial projections. Her knowledge of the most up-do-date wellness concepts and products, her database of spa operating statements, as well as her connections within the spa industry shined through during our client meeting and conference calls. Mia was a pleasure to work with and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her services."
     -Tanya Pierson, MAI, HVS, Senior Managing Director

"Mia has earned my confidence over the years by providing our clients with honest assessments of their existing and proposed wellness operations. She has a solid backbone and is not afraid to deliver the message (favorable or not) that focuses on the proper balance of high-quality guest experiences while delivering returns to investors in wellness operations."
     -John Lancet, MAI, HVS, Senior Managing Director


 

Press Coverage

Hotel appraisers adapt methods to COVID-19 uncertainty, 2020

Report: Spas Contribute Substantially to U.S. Hotel Revenues, 2020
Luxury hotel treatment rooms generate more than double the revenue, 2020
Top Strategies for Post-Crisis Planning in Urgent Times of Wellbeing and Health, 2020

My Articles