By Nuttha Goutier, co-founder and co-CEO, Sabai Thai Spa
Spend an afternoon on any busy retail strip in a Canadian city and you’ll notice how much of it now caters to wellness. Massage, facials, recovery studios and membership clinics have moved from occasional indulgence to something closer to routine maintenance, booked the way people book a haircut or a dental cleaning.
The numbers support what we see on the ground. The Global Wellness Institute’s 2025 Global Wellness Economy Monitor values the global wellness economy at US$6.8tn in 2024, double its size in 2013, and projects growth of 7.6% a year to reach nearly US$9.8tn by 2029. North America is now the largest regional wellness economy, at roughly US$2.3tn.
For prospective franchisees, that is encouraging context. It is not, on its own, a reason to invest. A growing category lifts strong and weak business models alike for a while, and the difference shows up later in cash flow, staffing and repeat business. We ran our own spas for close to two decades before we began franchising, and these are the questions we would want any investor to ask, of us or of any other brand.
Look at how customers come back, not just how they arrive
Opening week tells you very little. A wellness business lives on the second, fifth and twentieth visit. Ask what share of revenue comes from returning guests, and what the system does to earn those visits. Memberships, prepaid packages, gift vouchers and retail products all play a part, but the real job of each is retention. A voucher bought as a gift introduces a new guest; a well run program turns that guest into a regular. If a franchisor talks mostly about acquisition and rarely about retention, treat that as a gap worth probing.
Ask who will actually deliver the service
In a service business, your team is the product. Qualified spa therapists are in demand across Canada, and the regulation of massage therapy differs from province to province, which affects who you can hire and which services you can offer. Ask how the franchisor helps with recruitment, what training your staff will receive before opening and afterwards, and how service standards are kept consistent across locations. Then ask existing franchisees how long it took them to staff up and how they keep good people. Looking after your team matters as much as looking after your guests, and the two are closely linked.
Separate operating history from franchising history
Many brands, ours included, operated company locations for years before offering franchises. Both histories matter, but they answer different questions. Operating history tells you whether the concept works for guests. Franchising history tells you whether the support system works for owners. Ask how many franchised units are open, how long they have been trading, and whether you can speak with every one of them. Ask how support has changed as the network has grown. A franchisor you can trust will be open about where its system is still maturing.
Read the disclosure document with an adviser beside you
Six provinces, including British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, require franchisors to give you a disclosure document at least 14 days before you sign any agreement or pay any money. Use that window well, and review the document with a franchise lawyer and an accountant. Look closely at the ongoing fees: royalties, contributions to a brand or marketing fund, technology fees and anything else that recurs. Ask how the marketing fund is spent and how that spending is reported back to owners. When you are shown a financial figure, ask where it comes from, what period it covers and how many locations it reflects.
Plan for the launch, and for the year after
A new location needs a deliberate launch, and the budget should reflect the market. Opening in a city where the brand is already known is a very different exercise from opening where it is not. Ask what grand opening support is included, what you are expected to spend on local marketing, and how that changes in a new province or a large, competitive metro area. Then plan your working capital around the months it takes to build a regular customer base, not just around opening week.
Be honest about your own role
Finally, decide what kind of owner you want to be. Some franchisees work in the business every day; others hire a manager and focus on growing across several units. Both can work, but they call for different skills, budgets and expectations. Ask which model the franchisor’s most established owners use, and what support looks like for each.
Wellness demand is not a passing trend, and the long-term data makes that clear. But a strong market rewards preparation. The right opportunity is one where repeat business is designed in, the people side is taken seriously, and every question you ask gets a clear, documented answer. A good franchisor will welcome the scrutiny.
This article comes courtesy of Sabai Thai Spa, the award-winning Thai-inspired wellness spa brand that has operated in British Columbia for more than 20 years and plans to grow to more than 100 locations across Canada.
