Visitors eat one tonne of dates at Dubai spa

Heading to a spa may be just the ticket to work off all those excesses, but it seems customers at one Dubai spa have been mainlining the sweet stuff instead.

The Park Hyatt Dubai, has embarked on a soft refurbishment of its luxury spa Amara to coincide with the five-year anniversary of the hotel, and spa manager Simone Elena Lange has some fascinating numbers to share.

Visitors to the spa, she says, have consumed almost Dh30,000 worth of dates or nearly a tonne of the fruit over the last five years.

"We have welcomed more than 30,000 guests over the five years since we opened and, between them, they have indulged in 28,558 massages using 1,500 litres of the finest oils," she says.

"This is considerable traffic for a spa facility of our size and naturally we are now starting to see signs of wear and tear. Every year in Dubai we see an increasing supply of fantastic new spas, and we can not take for granted our fortunate reputation as being one of Dubai's leading spa's, so we must ensure the physical elements of the Amara spa experience, align with our treatments and service level, and, to this end, we have taken this opportunity to invest in an upgrade the spa's public areas and eight treatment rooms," she adds.

The soft refurbishment will be carried out in stages with an expected completion date of the beginning of 2011.