An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porteran­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Tucked in­to Wood­brook, To­va’s Place marked its 15th an­niver­sary in May week, cel­e­brat­ing a mile­stone that re­flects not on­ly its longevi­ty in busi­ness but al­so the re­la­tion­ships it has built with clients over the years.

The spa brought to­geth­er cus­tomers, staff and sup­port­ers to mark the oc­ca­sion, with own­er To­va Mil­er-Brooks thank­ing those who have re­mained loy­al through chang­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions and shift­ing con­sumer habits.

Speak­ing at the event, Mil­er-Brooks re­flect­ed on the busi­ness’s guid­ing phi­los­o­phy.

“Our wish for every per­son in this room is that you con­tin­ue to live our mot­to every sin­gle day: be hap­py, be healthy and be in­spired,” she told guests. She wished clients lives “filled with peace, pur­pose, well­ness, love and mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions.”

Like many ser­vice-based busi­ness­es, the spa has had to nav­i­gate a dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment. Mil­er-Brooks ac­knowl­edged that ris­ing costs have af­fect­ed both busi­ness­es and con­sumers, but said the fo­cus has been on adapt­ing rather than pass­ing every in­crease on to cus­tomers.

“This is a glob­al sit­u­a­tion, ac­tu­al­ly. It’s not just right here in Trinidad,” she ex­plained. “Spa is a sanc­tu­ary. So per­sons find their qui­et space or their qui­et time when they come here.”

For many clients, the an­niver­sary was al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on years of re­turn­ing to the same busi­ness.

The spa serves clients rang­ing from chil­dren to se­niors in their 90s, re­flect­ing a cus­tomer base that has grown along­side the es­tab­lish­ment.

One client, who has been vis­it­ing since the spa opened 15 years ago, re­called at­tend­ing its launch and watch­ing it grow over the years. An­oth­er, who re­turned to Trinidad three and a half years ago, said she quick­ly be­came a reg­u­lar af­ter be­ing in­tro­duced by a friend.

Sev­er­al women de­scribed the per­son­alised ap­proach as the rea­son they con­tin­ue to re­turn.

“I now live in Bar­ba­dos, but there’s no one that can come close to the types of ser­vices,” one client said.

An­oth­er, who has lived abroad, re­marked, “You’re com­ing to some­body who re­al­ly cares about you.” She added that each fa­cial is tai­lored to how her skin feels at the time rather than fol­low­ing the same rou­tine at every vis­it.

A long-stand­ing client said the busi­ness be­came more than some­where to re­ceive treat­ments dur­ing a dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od in her life.

“I re­alised that she was go­ing to be my life for­ev­er when I was com­ing here cry­ing,” she shared, de­scrib­ing vis­its as “a ther­a­py ses­sion apart from just tak­ing care of your­self.”

Oth­ers point­ed to the per­son­al re­la­tion­ships built over time. One client said Mil­er-Brooks re­mem­bers de­tails from pre­vi­ous con­ver­sa­tions and fol­lows up dur­ing lat­er vis­its, mak­ing cus­tomers feel val­ued rather than sim­ply an­oth­er ap­point­ment.

Mas­sage ther­a­pist and su­per­vi­sor Tecla Fras­er has spent four of the spa’s 15 years with the busi­ness, bring­ing with her two decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the pro­fes­sion.

Fras­er said the past few years have been chal­leng­ing as many reg­u­lar clients have dealt with job loss­es and fi­nan­cial pres­sures.

“I’ve had deaths, I’ve had loss of jobs, change of jobs,” she re­called. “A lot has slowed down be­cause of that.”

De­spite those set­backs, she cred­it­ed re­turn­ing clients with help­ing the busi­ness en­dure.

Fras­er be­lieves the work of­ten ex­tends be­yond phys­i­cal treat­ments.

“We cus­tomise ac­cord­ing to the per­son’s needs, and some­times they don’t even need a mas­sage; some­times they need a con­ver­sa­tion,” she ob­served. “Life is lif­ing, and it’s caus­ing a lot of peo­ple to have a lot of is­sues.”