Up to 900
objective criteria assessed per property across the full Forbes Travel Guide evaluation.
Spa Director’s Guide
The Spa Director’s Guide to Meeting Forbes Standards
How the right brand choice helps embed Forbes-aligned excellence into the treatment room, without adding complexity.
Up to 900 objective Forbes criteria per property
75% / 25% service to facility weighting for spas
3-star minimum, the only category rated this way
Key Takeaways
The short version
- Forbes Standards reward refinement, not addition. Inspectors are assessing how well existing treatments are delivered, not how many extra steps have been layered on.
- Inspectors assess personalisation, therapist confidence, consistency of the guest journey, storytelling, sustainability and aftercare, not just which products sit on the shelf.
- Anne Semonin’s made-to-measure approach, built on therapist-led consultation and the Intensive Complexes system, naturally supports all six of these areas.
- An exclusive, advanced technique such as the Energetic Drainage Massage gives therapists a genuine point of expertise to build confidence and consistency around.
- The strongest brands for Forbes-aligned spas don’t announce the standard. They enable it, treatment by treatment, guest by guest.
What Forbes Inspectors Are Actually Assessing
Across the UK, an increasing number of five-star hotel spas are reviewing their treatment menus, their brand mix and their therapist training against Forbes Travel Guide Standards. It’s a welcome shift. But it’s also one that gets misunderstood.
Forbes inspectors aren’t just assessing products or protocols. They’re observing how personalisation shows up, how confident therapists feel, how consistent the guest journey is, and how seamlessly aftercare is handled.
That distinction matters, because it changes where a Spa Director should actually be looking. Meeting Forbes Standards is rarely about adding a new treatment, a new device or a new supplier relationship on top of what already exists. It’s about whether what already happens in the treatment room, the consultation, the technique, the result, the story, the send-off, holds up to genuine scrutiny.
This is precisely where brand choice becomes critical. Some brands ask a spa to build all of this from scratch. Others are constructed in a way that makes Forbes-aligned excellence close to the default outcome of simply delivering the treatment properly.
“Once you start trying to game the system… you’ve already lost.”
Amanda Frasier, President of Standards and Ratings, Forbes Travel Guide, speaking to Journal des Palaces on the mistake of chasing the four-to-five-star percentage threshold rather than genuine service quality
Quick Self-Check
Five signs your treatment room isn’t quite Forbes-ready
- Every guest receives broadly the same protocol regardless of skin, mood or concern
- Therapists can describe what a product does, but not the technique behind it
- Guests don’t see or feel a visible difference before they leave the room
- There’s no real story behind the brand beyond “it’s luxury”
- Retail is offered as an afterthought at the till, not as a continuation of the treatment
Forbes Standards, By the Numbers
75% / 25%
For spas specifically, service accounts for roughly 75% of the score, facility quality the remaining 25%.
3-star minimum
Spas are the one category where the lowest published Forbes rating is three stars, not one.
Source: Forbes Travel Guide, official standards overview
The Inspector’s Perspective
The Six Areas Forbes Standards Actually Measure
Forbes Standards aren’t a single checklist item. They’re a lens applied across the whole treatment experience. In conversations with Spa Directors reviewing their brand mix against Forbes Standards, six areas consistently come up.
Personalisation
Is the guest genuinely consulted, or moved through a fixed protocol regardless of their skin or concern?
Therapist Confidence
Does the therapist execute an advanced, exclusive technique with visible skill and precision?
Visible Results
Can the guest see or feel a tangible difference before they leave the treatment room?
Storytelling
Is there an authentic narrative the therapist can share, building rapport beyond the treatment itself?
Sustainability
Do formulations, packaging and process reflect genuine attention to responsible luxury?
Aftercare
Does the experience continue at home, or end the moment the guest leaves the room?
A guest may forget the name of an active ingredient. They rarely forget being asked the right question, or noticing a result in the mirror before they’ve even got dressed.
How Anne Semonin Aligns With What’s Being Measured
Anne Semonin wasn’t built to chase a standards framework. It was built over 40 years of French spa heritage around a genuinely made-to-measure philosophy. What’s notable is how closely that philosophy already maps onto what Forbes inspectors are assessing.
Forbes writes its standards “from the guest’s point of view” rather than as operational instructions, giving properties “a roadmap” for how to arrive at excellence, and leaving how they get there up to them.
Amanda Frasier, President of Standards and Ratings, Forbes Travel Guide, Hospitality Daily podcast, “Behind the Stars,” January 2026
01
Personalisation & Consultation
Made-to-measure skincare using Intensive Complexes and therapist-led skin prescriptions. Every guest experience is visibly bespoke, built from a genuine consultation rather than a templated protocol.
02
Therapist Confidence & Technique
The Energetic Drainage Massage is an exclusive Anne Semonin protocol requiring advanced training and precision. It gives therapists a genuine point of technical expertise, elevating confidence and delivering a consistent, recognisable guest journey.
03
Visible Results & Innovation
Cryotherapy Ice Cubes, Cryo-Lift facials and cryo tools provide immediate, noticeable results before the guest leaves the room. Advanced, yet luxurious, exactly the balance Forbes inspectors look for.
04
Emotional Connection & Storytelling
A clear Parisian narrative and four decades of spa heritage give therapists something authentic to communicate, helping build rapport and memorability that extends beyond the treatment itself.
05
Sustainability & Attention to Detail
Vegan-friendly actives, recyclable packaging and considered formulation processes reflect Forbes’ increasing focus on responsible luxury and meticulous detail.
06
Aftercare & Retail Excellence
The Beauty Prescription method extends the treatment into personalised home care, supporting continuity and repeatable five-star service long after the guest checks out.
An Anne Semonin made-to-measure tray, set out ahead of a treatment room consultation. Personalisation starts here, before the guest ever lies down.
Personalisation Stage
Anne Semonin Intensive Complexes
The heart of Anne Semonin’s Mixology concept. Essential oils, trace elements, plant extracts and marine ingredients are blended in front of the guest and tailored to their skin, lifestyle and environment, turning consultation into visible, personalised treatment.
Where Forbes-aligned spas already have the foundations
From an operator’s perspective, the strongest brands for Forbes-aligned environments don’t shout about standards. They enable them, treatment by treatment, guest by guest. Most five-star spas already have the therapist skill and the guest volume required. What’s often missing is a brand built specifically to make personalisation, technique and storytelling the default, rather than something a therapist has to remember to add on top of a standard protocol.
For Your Therapists
What this means for the team delivering it
Forbes alignment isn’t just a management-level exercise. For therapists, it’s a genuine career asset. The Energetic Drainage Massage is an exclusive, advanced certification, not a generic add-on, and it’s the kind of specialist skill that sets a therapist apart on a CV, not just on a treatment menu.
VILASA’s training runs face-to-face, is refreshed every 6-12 months to keep skills current, and gives therapists a genuine point of technical expertise to build confidence around, rather than another product line to memorise. Motivated, well-trained therapists are also central to the guest experience Forbes inspectors are specifically trained to notice.
Common Mistakes
Where Forbes alignment goes wrong
- Treating Forbes Standards as a checklist to satisfy, rather than a lens for refining what already happens in the treatment room
- Adding new treatments or devices instead of deepening consultation and technique within the existing menu
- Training therapists on product knowledge without giving them an exclusive, advanced technique to build real confidence around
- Under-investing in the story behind the brand, leaving therapists with nothing authentic to share beyond generic luxury language
- Treating retail as a transaction at the till rather than a continuation of the treatment the guest has just experienced
Bringing Retail and Aftercare Into the Standard
One area Spa Directors consistently underestimate is how much aftercare and retail continuation weigh in a Forbes-aligned assessment. A guest who leaves with a genuinely personalised home-care recommendation, rather than a generic product upsell, experiences the five-star standard extending beyond the treatment room door. Anne Semonin’s Beauty Prescription method is built specifically around this continuity, giving therapists a natural, non-scripted way to recommend the right home care for what the guest has just experienced.
Glossary
Key terms explained
| Rating | Forbes Travel Guide’s own definition |
|---|---|
| Five-Star | Outstanding, highly customised level of service |
| Four-Star | Exceptional service, with high standards matched by facility quality |
- Forbes Travel Guide Standards
- A detailed set of service and experience benchmarks used by Forbes Travel Guide to rate hotels and spas. Five-Star properties are defined as delivering an outstanding, highly customised level of service, Four-Star as exceptional with high standards matched by facility quality. Inspectors are anonymous at all times, so they experience the property as a typical guest would, and no property can pay for a rating.
- Made-to-measure skincare
- Skincare blended or prescribed specifically for an individual guest’s skin, rather than applied as a fixed, identical protocol for every client.
- Intensive Complexes
- Anne Semonin’s signature Mixology system, blending essential oils, trace elements, plant extracts and marine ingredients into a bespoke treatment mix chosen for each guest.
- Energetic Drainage Massage
- An exclusive Anne Semonin massage protocol requiring advanced therapist training, designed to deliver a consistent, recognisable, results-led guest journey.
- Beauty Prescription
- Anne Semonin’s method for extending a treatment into personalised home care, supporting continuity of results after the guest leaves the spa.
What great looks like in practice
Anne Semonin is already trusted within exactly the kind of five-star hotel spas that are actively navigating Forbes Standards today, including properties such as:
Four SeasonsPark HyattMandarin Oriental
Among named Forbes Five-Star properties: Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid; Four Seasons Resort The Nam Hai, Hoi An; Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita; Palace Hotel Tokyo; and Park Hyatt Saigon.
The common thread across these properties isn’t a shared checklist. It’s a consistent commitment to personalisation, therapist confidence and a genuine story behind the brand on the shelf, exactly the qualities Forbes inspectors are trained to notice.
The Business Case
Why Forbes Alignment Pays For Itself
Aligning to Forbes Standards isn’t only a service benchmark. For a five-star hotel spa, it’s a commercial signal, to guests, to review sites, and to the wider luxury travel market, that the spa experience matches the standard set by the rest of the property. This is the section built for the conversation with your General Manager.
Forbes doesn’t publish the exact formula for how each department feeds into a hotel’s overall rating. But spas are the one category where the minimum published Forbes rating is three stars, not one, a signal of how central spa performance is considered to the total five-star guest experience. An underperforming spa isn’t a contained, siloed weak point. It’s a visible seam in the whole property’s five-star claim, and precisely the kind of thing inspectors are trained to notice.
Based on Forbes Travel Guide’s own published standards overview
Guest trust
Forbes alignment reassures the most discerning, well-travelled guests before they even book a treatment.
Therapist retention
In VILASA’s experience, therapists given genuine expertise and technique to build confidence around tend to be more engaged, and less likely to leave.
Retail performance
In VILASA’s experience, personalised aftercare recommendations tend to outperform generic upsells at the till.
Premium positioning
A consistent, Forbes-aligned guest journey supports treatment pricing that a generic menu cannot.
Review and OTA impact
Guests increasingly cross-reference official ratings like Forbes against review platforms before booking. A spa mismatch is one of the more visible ways that consistency breaks down.
Property-wide reputation
A spa that meets the same standard as the rest of a Forbes-rated property strengthens the whole guest experience, not just the treatment menu.
The strongest brands don’t need to announce that they support Forbes Standards. Guests feel it in the consultation, see it in the result, and remember it in the story they’re told along the way.
How to Align Your Spa Experience to Forbes Standards
Pulling the guidance in this piece into a single sequence, aligning an existing spa menu to Forbes Standards generally comes down to six areas of refinement, not a menu overhaul.
Step By Step
How to align, in order
- Audit your current consultation process. Decide honestly whether guests are genuinely consulted, or moved through a fixed protocol regardless of skin or concern.
- Review therapist training and signature technique. Identify whether therapists have an exclusive, advanced technique to build genuine confidence and consistency around.
- Check for visible results within your existing menu. Assess whether guests see or feel a tangible difference before they leave the treatment room.
- Strengthen brand storytelling. Give therapists an authentic heritage narrative to share, rather than generic luxury language.
- Assess sustainability credentials. Review formulation, packaging and sourcing against what Forbes inspectors are increasingly looking for.
- Build a genuine retail and aftercare continuation. Replace till-point upselling with a personalised home-care recommendation that extends the treatment.
Six Questions to Ask Before Switching Spa Brands
Meeting Forbes Standards is rarely the barrier. The real hesitation for most Spa Directors is switching an existing supplier relationship, particularly mid-contract. These are the questions worth asking any brand or distributor before you commit either way.
Before You Switch
Six questions to ask any potential supplier
- What’s the minimum order commitment, and is a phased trial, one signature treatment first, possible before switching fully?
- How is therapist training handled once terms are agreed, and how quickly can we be ready?
- What happens to existing stock and treatment menus during the changeover?
- If we trial a single treatment first, what does the path to a fuller commitment look like, and over what timeframe?
- What ongoing support exists after the initial switch, not just at launch?
- If we’re still under contract elsewhere, is it worth talking now to be ready for renewal, and could exclusivity for a set period or location be part of that conversation?
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Forbes Travel Guide Standards for spas?
Forbes Travel Guide Standards are a set of detailed service and experience benchmarks used to assess five-star hotel spas. Inspectors assess areas such as personalisation, therapist confidence and technique, consistency of the guest journey, and aftercare, rather than simply checking which products are on the shelf.
Do I need a specific brand to meet Forbes Standards?
No single brand is required to meet Forbes Standards. What matters is whether the treatment experience demonstrates genuine personalisation, therapist confidence, visible results, authentic storytelling, considered sustainability and proper aftercare. Brand choice matters because some brands make it far easier to embed these qualities into every treatment.
How does Anne Semonin support Forbes-aligned spas?
Anne Semonin’s made-to-measure approach, built around therapist-led consultation and the Intensive Complexes system, supports Forbes Standards across personalisation, therapist technique, visible results, storytelling, sustainability and aftercare, without requiring a spa to add extra steps or complexity to its existing menu.
What is the Energetic Drainage Massage?
The Energetic Drainage Massage is an exclusive Anne Semonin protocol requiring advanced therapist training and precision. It is designed to deliver a consistent, recognisable guest journey while giving therapists a genuine point of technical expertise to build confidence around.
How do I start aligning my spa experience to Forbes Standards?
Start by auditing your current consultation process, reviewing therapist training and signature techniques, checking for visible results within your existing treatment menu, strengthening brand storytelling, assessing sustainability credentials, and building a genuine retail continuation. Most spas already have the foundations in place and need refinement rather than a menu overhaul.
Quick Assessment
Is your spa Forbes-ready?
Tick what already applies to your spa’s approach to answer honestly, and we’ll give you a straight read on where you stand.
Your Result
How VILASA Supports Forbes-Aligned Spas
VILASA partners with luxury hotel spas across the UK and Ireland, helping operators create distinctive guest experiences through exceptional spa brands, treatment concepts and therapist education, from initial product selection through to launch, ongoing training and marketing support. As Founder of VILASA, representing Anne Semonin, marocMaroc and Gentlemen’s Tonic, this is exactly why Anne Semonin continues to resonate so strongly within Forbes-aligned hotel spas.
Forbes inspectors assess consistency across the whole guest journey, not one treatment in isolation. For spas with a broader menu, that can mean pairing Anne Semonin’s made-to-measure facials with marocMaroc’s hammam heritage for body ritual, or Gentlemen’s Tonic for a credible male grooming offer, so personalisation and storytelling hold up across every treatment type a guest might book, not just one.
If you’re reviewing your spa’s brand mix ahead of a Forbes assessment, or simply want a straight read on where your current menu stands, we’d be delighted to share ideas, insights and best practice from across the sector.
Getting Started
What to expect when you introduce Anne Semonin
- Investment. Opening orders typically start from a modest professional and retail package, with no minimum order commitment.
- Training. 2-4 days, delivered face-to-face on site, covering brand and product knowledge, the Energetic Drainage Massage protocol, and retail sales training.
- Refresher training. Every 6-12 months, to keep therapist delivery consistent.
- Timeline. From first conversation to launch can take as little as 30 days once terms are confirmed.
Sources
Referenced in this guide
Forbes Travel Guide, official ratings standards
Amanda Frasier interview, Journal des Palaces, 24 June 2024
“Behind the Stars,” Hospitality Daily podcast, January 2026
“What Makes A Forbes Travel Guide Five Star?”, Forbes Travel Guide Stories, 10 February 2026
Speak To Our Team
Reviewing your spa’s alignment to Forbes Standards?
Our team works directly with Spa Directors to assess fit, review therapist training needs, and recommend the right product selection for your menu and treatment room setup. No obligation, no minimum order required to have a conversation.
A 20-minute call, no obligation and no sales pressure, we’ll talk through fit, product selection and next steps for your spa.
