I’ve been hands on in the arena with Spa pre-openings and operating Spas in the five-star hospitality industry for almost 3 decades. My mission is to offer to my luxury global customer’s, exceptional professional guidance, advice, and assistance gained from my experience in the field. Whether you are looking to start a new spa project or to improve the financial and quality performance of an existing spa, I target my time and tasks towards accomplishing your goals efficiently, effectively, and accurately. 

My experience as a wellness and transformational coach goes from conducting and mentoring one on one career development sessions to consulting and advising my coaching clients on optimal and sustainable wellness habits, stress management, loss of purpose in life and developing tailored goal-focused initiatives to create long lasting results. My ability to connect with people with empathy and establish trusting relationships, along with my strong communication skills, position me to thrive in this challenging field.

Offering valuable solutions through worldly experience.

How my journey began…

I was born and raised in Madrid, and left Spain almost three decades ago without knowing I was about to experience the world and the diversity of more than fifty different cultures.

I've been leading, mentoring and coaching successful teams in between 30 to 150 people in some of the most prestigious Spas around the world, always committed to achieving my financial goals and delivering the best quality service. I have contributed to 5 successful Hotel Spa opening projects and completed several site reports of sister properties to improve financial results and quality performance.

My passion for inspiring teams and helping others, led me to furthering my professional development by becoming a certified health and wellness coach, transformational coach and master neuro-linguistic programming practitioner.

My Career Path

    • Pre-opening

    • Increase revenue projections by 37% in 4 years

    • Hired, trained and developed management and line up colleagues

    • Created a strong guests’ following, loyalty and retention

    • Established and achieved Five Stars Forbes rating

    • Created new development projects to increase room utilization and revenue optimization

    • Coaching clients the benefits of becoming the best version of themselves and understanding “what’s in it for me?”, providing education and motivation.

    • Weekly communication with participants building rapport and trust through reflection and empathy.

    • Building self-care plans made of bite-sized behavior changes that will help clients achieve their long-term goals.

    • Managing multiple active participant cases at one time, with a variety of face-to-face, digital interactions.

    • In addition to providing wellness coaching, contributing to and creating content as needed, including but not limited to marketing content, blog articles, and webinars.

    • Increase revenue projections by 58% in 4 years

    • Increase retail sales by 10%

    • Maintained Five stars by Forbes Travel Guide.

    • Initiated a new development project to increase room utilization and revenue optimization.

    • Mentored and developed Managers and line up colleagues

    • Achieved highest Health and Safety audit scores across property worldwide

    • Site visit for a rebranding of a Hyatt to a Mandarin Oriental

    • Creation of a detailed report with full assessment and recommendations

    • Trained Management and staff on new vision and mission and new standards

    • Created list for new OS&E’s

    • Pre-opening

    • Established successfully the first luxury Hotel Spa concept in the city

    • Created a strong guests’ following, loyalty and retention during the first year

    • Increased revenues by 20%

    • Recovered Health and Safety standards to success and achieved highest audit scores in Europe

    • Created niche and innovative trends with the introduction of unique brands and third party strategy partners

    • Winner of the Black Diamond Award as the Best Spa Director in Europe 2012

    • Prepared the team for Forbes Five-Star rating

    • Pre-opening task force

    • Mentored and developed Spa Director and Managers

    • Set up SOP’S, financial reports and KPI’s

    • Interim Director of Spa, Salon and Fitness

    • Created healthy daily routines and structures for efficient operation

    • Mentored and developed Managers and line up colleagues

    • Implemented new financial reports and KPI’s

    • Improved quality survey scores

    • Pre-opening Executive Director of Spa, Salon & Fitness

    • Improved financial performance by 16% in two years

    • Improved quality performance

    • Increase local guests’ awareness

    • Improved retail sales by 12%

    • Mentored and developed managers and line up colleagues

    • Created healthy daily routines and structures for efficient operation

    • Pre-opening of two of the first luxury floating Spas at sea

    • Mentoring, training and developing management and team members

    • Assisting sister ships underperforming financially with successful revenue increases in between 10% and 25%

Passion Creates Success

  • What I love about hospitality and spas is having the drive to continuously create unforgettable and memorable experiences regardless the obstacles and circumstances. It is like being in a constant challenge, no day is ever the same and the relationships built over time become priceless. What I find fascinating about coaching and helping people is that none of us are the same, we have different visions, goals and dreams, but each and every single one of us have a unique gift to bring to this world, sometimes we just don’t know yet and we need the support and guidance to discover it.

    Virginia Lara