Our Founder's Bio
Meet Hannelore R. LeavyHannelore R. Leavy has lived the spa life since she was a child. She was born and raised in Vienna, Austria, where spas are a way of life. After moving to the United States, she started to promote health vacations to European spas in her capacity as Marketing Director of the Austrian National Tourist Office. Her 20+ years of experience in the promotion of travel and tourism made her a natural candidate to become "Jeffrey Joseph's Spa-Finders" Vice President of Sales and Marketing and the Associate Publisher of THE SPA FINDER in 1986. She was the innovator behind many of Spa Finder’s projects, including the acceptance of advertising in the Spa Finder catalog and the organization of the first Spa Symposium in 1990, from which I/SPA (International Spa Association) emerged.
Since the mid-eighties, Hannelore has been a strong force in developing the U.S. spa industry. She is considered a major source for information on spas in general and the day spa industry in particular. She first identified the emerging market for day spa services as early as 1991, when she commenced a three-year research study that resulted in the publication of the first Day Spa Directory in 1994. She is the Founder and Executive Director of THE DAY SPA ASSOCIATION, a professional association dedicated to the education of the consumer as to the benefits and availability of spa treatments and to helping professionals preserve and elevate the standard of spa services.
Hannelore has been conducting workshops at all major esthetic, massage, and spa trade shows since the early 1990s and frequently serves on spa industry expert panels. She recently had the honor of addressing the Spa Conference at Shanghai, China, which introduced the day spa industry to this emerging market. Hannelore was also involved in the formation of the China Spa Association. European spa industry professionals are also looking to her in an effort to learn from their American counterparts, whom she is representing at Cosmoprof, Italy. She is a frequent contributor to all of the spa industry’s trade publications, and she is sought after by their writers for expert advice. In addition, many spa books, both for consumers and spa professionals, include forwards written by her and quote her frequently.
To reach the consumer, Hannelore has appeared on CNBC, and she has been quoted hundreds of times in newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times, New York Magazine, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Dispatch, LA Magazine, The New Yorker, Inc., Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Time. She is also sought after to speak at women’s business gatherings and workshops. She is the co-author with Dr. Reinhard Bergel of the best-selling book THE SPA ENCYCLOPEDIA, the first-ever compilation of over 100 traditional spa treatments, including their benefits and contra-indications. This book has proven to be an invaluable tool for spa professionals and a useful guide for consumers to learn about spa treatments. She is presently working on her second volume, which concentrates on the skincare treatments at spas and the anti-aging evolution. Subsequent books are planned to address other major components of spas.
Realizing the trend in the marketplace towards medical spa services, she founded THE INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL SPA ASSOCIATION in 2002, of which she is the Executive Director, and she is rapidly becoming the spokesperson for the medical spa industry throughout the world.
