‘‘Many people are still not ready to accept that what’s in our mind totally affects our body and visa versa. It’s a big change for a spa to use this knowledge as a core philosophy,” says Patrizia Bortolin, the creator and director of the Vair spa at the Borgo Egnazia resort in Puglia, south Italy.

Her approach to treatments is rooted in psychosomatics. She believes our wellbeing is related to the subconscious interplay between our emotional and physical states, which is enhanced by working with the body and the mind in a variety of ways – often subtle and playful but always with a real connection between therapist and client.

The result is a holistic, reflective and personal spa experience that differs radically from the cookie-cutter concepts of so many hotel spas. Guests at Vair (meaning ‘true’ in Apulian) can, of course, have a body massage or manicure, but can also explore the sound of their voice with a musician or have a facial that’s more of a psychological journey than a pore-cleansing sensation.

It’s a daring move given that spa-goers rarely try new things. So how did Bortolin convince the owner to fully embrace such a different spa concept and how well does it perform from a business point of view?

Variation on a spa theme
Borgo Egnazia, a Pompeii-style mapping of villas, piazzas and pools, is a privately-owned, sprawling resort that’s earned its stripes in high-end hospitality. It’s been applauded by Conde Nast Traveller and has hosted Justin Timberlake’s wedding in the five years since it opened among the olive groves between Bari and Brindisi.

The 1,800sq m (19,375sq ft) underground Vair spa ticks the luxury list of flickering candlelight, trickling water, natural textures and cocooning silence, beautifully. There’s even a suite of Roman bathing facilities with a tepidarium, caldarium, Kneipp bath, plunge pools and marble scrub room that can be booked exclusively for couples. It’s highly indulgent by any standards. Yet this self-named ‘experimental spa’ also hints at a new concept for hotels – an unusual offering which may not have come to life if it wasn’t for the trust and bravery of hotel owner, Aldo Melpignano, who gave his director free reign with her creativity.

When Bortolin first met Melpignano through personal contacts, she was expecting to develop ‘a standard spa’, as she had done in her previous spa director roles across Italy – most recently at Bagni di Pisa in Tuscany. But Melpignano wanted something that embraced ‘natural’ and ‘Puglia’, something that gave his guests a sense of place and offered them genuine sincerity.

So when Bortolin came on board a year prior to opening, she took his wishes to heart and tapped into the energy of the surrounding landscape: an earthy, ancient terrain of olive and lemon groves, hot sun and sea breezes. “Egnazia is like a dream. My ideas changed when I came here. I had to follow my inspiration,” says Bortolin, who exudes honesty and passion in everything she does in relation to Vair.

On a prosaic level, this led to the development of products formulated around olive oil and prickly pear, an antioxidant-rich oil from the prickly pear cactus that grows prolifically in Puglia, as well as lavender and lemon.

On a more profound level, Bortolin delved into Apulian culture and wove local folklore with healing therapies and psychosomatics, which are her personal areas of interest and study.

In the three-day Tarant ‘tarantula therapy’ programme, for example, women rediscover their feminine side and are empowered with music and movement, yoga, psycho-emotional sessions with intuitive healers and holistic treatments. The programme is based on the Apulian tarant ritual for releasing the ‘sting’ that, according to myth, is metaphorically injected into women by the men in their lives!

Psychosomatic approach
While Vair has all the trappings of an opulent spa on an aesthetic level, the real luxury is the intense personal connection which can only be offered to guests when therapists have a deep understanding and love of their craft. They have an intuitive awareness which allows them to work with their clients as individuals based on their own particular life histories.

It’s for this reason that Bortolin has chosen colleagues who share her psychosomatic approach – both in terms of expert practitioners, who count for a significant proportion of her team, as well as massage and facial therapists.

Gianni Rotondo, a psychologist and folk musician, uses sound and rhythm in his 90-minute Nu Suun Vair, ‘real sound’ treatment, which can be experienced privately or in a group. In this activity-based music therapy, guests play instruments and make harmonies to encourage imagination and communication as well as to release physical and psychological tensions.

With a similar objective for release, Stefano Battaglia, an Italian shaman and integrative healer, combines talk therapy with gentle handling of the body to treat joint and muscle pain. He does this in a way that simultaneously stimulates the body’s reflexes and self-healing mechanisms which in turn aid relief of psycho-emotional as well as physical stress. His 50- or 80-minute treatment, called Avenmari ‘sunset’, is the spa’s signature treatment.

It’s a mark of Bortolin’s commitment that many of Vair’s treatments were a year in research and practice before launching to guests. She says, “I think our treatments are so beautiful and very unique already. We can stay like this or we can take everything to a different level.” She and her team spend time tweaking treatment protocols during January when the tourist onslaught on southern Italy relaxes a little.

This year she invited a monk from India to spend time in daily meditation and discussion in her belief that ongoing personal nurture of what she calls the ‘community’ can only upgrade the spa experience for guests too.

Matching wellbeing with revenue
With programmes such as Tarant, plus a psychophysical detox package and one based in outdoor fitness, all ranging between three and seven days, Melpignano believes Vair is ahead of its time. “Everyone’s speaking this holistic language now but it’s not always being delivered in luxury hotel spas. My belief has always been to develop a spa that puts special attention on the soul of our guests, rather than just offering nice massages,” he says. The programmes can even be adapted to suit individual needs. In fact the entire Vair experience feels more like tailor-made than off-the-peg.

Having said this, both Bortolin and Melpignano admit that their concept doesn’t appeal to all guests. “Some people don’t engage on the level we offer, they come to the spa for a massage because that’s what they want or they don’t expect anything else, so we offer these too,” says Melpignano. They also confess that the spa needs to contribute more than its current 5 per cent of hotel revenue, even though Vair already turns over more than €1m (US$1.1m, £0.7m) a year.

Melpignano believes revenues will increase by positioning Vair as a wellbeing destination in its own right rather marketing Borgo Egnazia as ‘a resort with a spa’. This shift in perception will also help to forge an upswing in winter business for the hotel, he says.

“We offer wellness in the broadest sense: good food, outdoor activities, culture, sea and spa,” says Melpignano. Together with Bortolin, he wants to see Vair’s deep and daring spa become a unique destination in the current surge in wellness tourism.