Pulse November / December 2019 | Page 30

2019 ISPA CONFERENCE & EXPO Thursday General Seion STRENGTH IN MOTION: Reaching Your Potential with Marcus Buckingham “When you study excellence, you’ll find that it is idiosyncratic. Excellence starts looking really wierd quickly.” — MARCUS BUCKINGHAM dIgItal Pulse exClusIve! click this box in the digital issue to view Jeremy’s acceptance speech. T he second General Session of the 2019 iSPa conference & expo keyed in on the dominant issue facing the spa industry: workforce challenges. after starting with a meditative violin performance by iSPa member-favorite rebecca Sabine, Pwc’s colin mcilheney took the stage for his annual report on the latest iSPa U.S. Spa industry Study. as discussed previously in Pulse, 28 PULSE ■ novEmbEr/dEcEmbEr 2019 every ‘Big five’ statistic saw positive growth, and $20 billion total revenue is now within reach of the U.S. spa industry. mcilheney noted the record participation in this year’s Study and new levels of regional data for spas. While california still has the most spa locations and greatest spa revenue of any state, texas is now a surprising number two in both categories and currently seeing strong growth. mcilheney further noted that this was the 20th birthday of the iSPa U.S. Spa industry Study, showing off the original 2000 report to the audience. after a surprise birthday celebration onstage with mcilheney, iSPa foundation chairman frank Pitsikalis introduced this year’s iSPa foundation mary tabacchi Scholarship winner: Quincy reynolds. to learn more about