Indian spa chain, The Four Fountains Spa, is looking to open 25 outlets in the country next year. The company which opened six outlets this year is aiming to have 300 spa outlets in India by 2016. Further, the company is also looking at retailing its products from next year.
Speaking with India Hospitality Review, Sunil Rao, Co-founder and Director of The Four Fountains Spa, said, “Next year we are looking at opening 25 spas in the country. This will largely come in through expansion in cities we are present in, such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, with new franchisees being added. We will also enter Gujarat, Hyderabad, Punjab and Chennai.”
In 2012, The Four Fountains saw an overall growth of 40 per cent. The company also saw 15-17 per cent growth in same store sales. According to Rao, the major challenge this year was on the repeat front.
“Each time we open a new spa, getting the new guest to start coming in is not all that difficult because we have a fairly good template. However on the repeat side we would like that to be much higher. Even though our repeat rate is fairly high, we are aiming to push that up by a few notches more,” he said.
Rao added that the expansion in 2013-14 will majorly be in the metros and mini-metros. However, to meet their target of opening 300 spas, the company will focus on top 20 cities as well.
The Four Fountains is also looking at retailing its products, starting with their own spas and then selling them outside their spas as well.
“We are looking at new lines of businesses, so next year we will be getting into retailing of products that are branded for The Four Fountains Spa. We will start this first from our own spas and eventually we will be looking at retailing these products outside our spas,” Rao said.
In terms of infusing capital for expansion and how the company plans to generate it, Rao said, “We are funded by a venture capitalist fund by the name of Fulcrum Start-Up. We are a well funded company. However all our expansion will be coming in largely through franchising and hence we do not have any capital requirements in terms of our expansion as such.”
The Four Fountains Spa was started in 2007 by Sunil Rao, Anurag Kedia and Saurabh Garg. The company at present has 19 outlets in the country.