WELLNESS – ALDINA DUARTE-RAMOS, CEO OF SPOON AND SPOON: "GOING BEYOND FLEETING TRENDS TO STRUCTURE A COHERENT WELLNESS EXPERIENCE" (France)
The executive is rethinking wellness in luxury hospitality by combining neuroscience, strategy, and sensoriality to build tailor-made, sustainable, and deeply human experiences. |
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WELLNESS – ALDINA DUARTE-RAMOS, CEO OF SPOON AND SPOON: "GOING BEYOND FLEETING TRENDS TO STRUCTURE A COHERENT WELLNESS EXPERIENCE" (France)
The executive is rethinking wellness in luxury hospitality by combining neuroscience, strategy, and sensoriality to build tailor-made, sustainable, and deeply human experiences. |
Category: Europe - France - Interviews and portraits
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- Providers - Interviews
Interview made by Vanessa Guerrier-Buisine on 2025-05-19
 Aldina Duarte Ramos is the founder of Spoon and Spoon
Photo credit © François Le Prat
From leading Accor’s first spa concept to creating the holistic label The Purist – launched in 2023 at the Cures Marines in Trouville – Aldina Duarte-Ramos has consistently combined forward-looking vision with operational pragmatism. Fascinated by neuroscience and inspired by epigenetics, she has turned wellness into a lever of innovation for Accor brands, grounded on the pillars of Sleep, Food, Sport & Spa. Today, she continues to explore the intersection of hospitality, health, and consciousness, supported by an international network of experts, to design transformative, tailor-made experiences.
As wellness has become a strategic axis in hospitality and F&B, far beyond the traditional spa, Spoon and Spoon responds to a growing demand for differentiation, coherence, profitability, and sustainability. The pursuit of regeneration and longevity, once a niche, is now central to guest expectations – especially for UHNWI.
Aldina is now redefining the standards of experience and introducing new concepts that combine local culture, technological innovation, and a holistic approach. That delicate balance is where the promise of Spoon and Spoon lies. In an exclusive interview with Journal des Palaces, the founder reflects on the genesis of her journey and the projects that fuel her passion daily, in service of a multisensory hospitality.
Journal des Palaces: After a long career at Accor, what motivated you to launch Spoon and Spoon, and what is the mission of your agency?
Aldina Duarte-Ramos: After 18 years at Accor, where I developed wellness concepts for brands like Sofitel, Pullman, and Swissôtel, I wanted to fly solo. That journey allowed me to explore wellness in all its dimensions: spa, sport, sleep, nutrition… with a strong strategic and operational focus. I also had the opportunity to lead innovative projects like SoSPA and The Purist.
What motivated me to create Spoon and Spoon was the freedom to shape experiences, craft strategies, and bring them to life with my vision and energy on the ground. I also needed agility, a “test & learn” approach to the trends I was decoding and wanted to implement on-site. The wellness sector is evolving so quickly that I needed to adapt to the reality on the ground and to market demand.
Who are Spoon and Spoon’s clients, and what are they looking for?
We support a variety of clients, but they all share the same requirement: to create meaning through experience. These include cosmetic brands wanting to anchor their message in hospitality, welltech companies seeking to connect technological innovation with wellbeing, and branding agencies looking to anticipate and decode consumer needs.
On the hospitality side, we work with hotels – whether or not they already have a wellness offering – as well as with owners and investors backing ambitious projects. Often, these are places still in development and in need of a strong vision to emerge.
My role at Spoon and Spoon is to help structure that vision and give it a concrete, coherent, desirable, sustainable, human, and authentic form, aligned with the expectations of today's and tomorrow’s guests. The agency’s name is no coincidence – Spoon and Spoon is about nourishing both body and soul.
How do you define a holistic approach to wellness in the luxury hospitality sector?
To me, a holistic approach in luxury hospitality must be rooted in authenticity. Every project I work on follows a unique vision, tailor-made with a clear intention for differentiation and lasting impact. That means going well beyond ephemeral trends to build a coherent wellness experience grounded in a brand philosophy.
I rely on ongoing international monitoring, crossing fields like health, tech, sports, and cosmetics, to anticipate deep market shifts – and sometimes, to know when not to follow a trend.
What makes your approach different from other wellness players?
My background gave me a multicultural perspective on wellness, with experiences in Italy, the US, and Thailand. These shaped my ability to design concepts sensitive to local contexts while maintaining a global outlook. My approach is based on an ecosystem of multidisciplinary experts, both in France and internationally, activated around three key pillars:
• Preparation: to assess project feasibility (financials, design, market research, technical validation);
• Product: to build the offering, activate targeted expertise (digital, F&B, training), and forge custom partnerships;
• Operational Planning: to support the project from pre-opening to post-opening, closely working with on-site teams. This step also allows me to personally coach the wellness team to ensure quality and performance tracking.
In terms of health, I collaborate with doctors specializing in longevity, mental health, sleep, and nutrition.
Not all requests involve deep transformation – sometimes it's a matter of providing an outside perspective on quality, a specific project, a team, or an offering’s positioning. In these cases, I propose flash audits, idea books, strategic memos with action plans, or short-term support missions. It’s a flexible service for clients with a specific need at a given moment.
What are the main challenges hoteliers face when integrating wellness programs, and how do you help them address these?
I believe innovation should be a conscious choice, not something endured. This requires openness, curiosity, and the courage to make informed decisions – with a roadmap and the right to fail.
My role is to guide the project leader in asking the right questions – not just fulfilling every wish and handing over technology on a silver platter. Once the framework is clear and ambition defined, I can draft the first idea book. Decisions are made together. Teams are involved. We define objectives and performance indicators collaboratively.
Can you give an example of a Spoon and Spoon audit that helped improve hotel performance?
Some audits are still ongoing. One in the south of France helped a seasonal property reposition itself around the concept of “Wellness Destination.” A first performance review is planned for October, at the end of the season.
On the other hand, during an audit in Italy in early 2024, the client chose not to move forward – the project was too ambitious for the timeline they had set. And that’s also the role of an audit: to provide a clear-eyed diagnosis, even if it doesn’t match expectations. To move fast, you need a clear vision and committed steps at every stage.
What KPIs do you use to evaluate the effectiveness of wellness programs?
In a hotel context, I measure the effectiveness of wellness programs through several key indicators:
• Capture rate of in-house guests: If a hotel has high occupancy but a low capture rate for wellness areas, that’s telling. We then reassess the guest journey and interdepartmental workflows.
• Local clientele engagement: Long-term success often depends on drawing in local guests. Simple tools like subscription plans offer high ROI and allow us to further personalize service.
• Utilization of wellness spaces: Tracks the most profitable offerings and spaces, guiding short-term decisions and offer adjustments.
• Satisfaction surveys: Crucial to measuring real-time guest experience and fine-tuning our offerings.
What concrete advice would you give hoteliers wanting to implement a relevant and profitable wellness strategy?
Any hotel can incorporate wellness, provided the offering is clear, simple, and well executed with trained teams. This ensures authenticity and consistency in the guest journey. For example, in-room TVs could feature workout, yoga, or meditation sessions. QR codes in the bathroom or on the nightstand can link to simple routines.
Breakfast is key – it should strike a balance between buffet and à la carte hot dishes. A well-designed wellness breakfast can become a signature, attracting both in-house and local guests.Room service can also reflect this, offering items like “Good Night,” “Beauty” or “Bath” kits – an offering that could be shared between F&B and Housekeeping teams.
This requires vision and a project to embody and build. Beyond these examples, it’s essential to measure and adjust continuously. Collecting feedback and tracking KPIs allows hotels to refine their offerings and make them more appealing and profitable.
Wellness is reshaping hospitality codes – and performance levers exist at every level.
What emerging trends do you observe in the wellness space, and how will they shape the future of hospitality?
We are witnessing a profound evolution in wellness expectations. It’s no longer just about treatments or a spa – it’s a true philosophy embedded in the entire guest journey. Wellness now influences rooms, F&B, and is redefining comfort and personalization standards. The hotel experience of tomorrow will integrate essential sensory elements: air, water, light, sound. These will become vital to creating environments conducive to balance and even regeneration.
AI is paving the way for hyper-personalized experiences with precise diagnostics – skin, posture, stress – and will play a key role in preventive and integrative approaches. Biomimicry is bringing intuitive, sustainable innovations inspired by nature. Biophilic design is meeting the growing need for reconnection, turning hotels into sanctuaries of regeneration. Biotech is revolutionizing beauty treatments with more effective, healthy, and sustainable formulations.
And bioenergetic approaches – frequencies, sound, vibration – add a new dimension to wellness, inspired by quantum physics and natural rhythms.
As Albert Einstein said: “Everything is energy, and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want, and you cannot help but get that reality.”
These trends are shaping a future where science, nature, and technology harmoniously converge to create more conscious, authentic, and profoundly regenerative experiences in hospitality.
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