The key to making sure your guests are stress-free is to tire them out, according to Mike Wallace, brand manager at European thermal and medical spa brand Danubius.

Danubius, which operates 30 medical spas with 3,429 spa hotel rooms, 42 doctors and 700 therapists, performs around 2 million treatments a year at its locations in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and England.

“We make our guests so tired, they don’t have the energy to be stressed,” said Wallace, speaking at the World Spa & Wellness Convention Sunday in London.

And the key to that blissful tiredness is heat, he said, and Danubius’ natural thermal pools – the star attraction at its resorts – help to get that feeling underway.

“After one or two minutes, the heat literally melts the stress away,” said Wallace.

Guests at Danubius hotels often come for two or three weeks at a time, and have three to four treatments a day, Wallace said.

Other treatments that help “melt” stress away include 40-degree-Celsius mud packs combined with dry wraps (during which nine out of 10 guests fall asleep, said Wallace) and CO2 gas baths, which are said to lower blood pressure and stimulate blood circulation.

“Getting your core treatments to really de-stress is your number-one priority,” said Wallace.

“You also have to look at the behaviour of your staff, music, lighting and aroma – everything in the guest journey should be there to relax, not stimulate.”

Improving customer service requires hard work and dedication, says Mike Wallace