Tour de Piscine: foreign pool industries often are an enigma to U.S. companies. Here's why the European market is abuzz with activity—and business prospects

Pool & Spa News, August 6, 2004 by Shabnam Mogharabi

With the first signs of spring, fashion designers look toward Paris. The City of Lights often dictates what the average person will wear in the year to come.

The pool industry is no different. At European expos, professionals from around the globe gather to learn the latest ways to dress up the pools they build.

"It's a nice exchange of minds," says Yves Kornstein, export sales manager at Diffazur S.A., a pool design/construction company in St. Laurent du Var, France. "Every year, we go to the shows and see the new products. American people phone us to get ideas."

For decades, a continuous stream of inventive pool designs has flowed out of Europe, with U.S. companies rushing to imitate. Today, however, the tide may be shifting. Europeans are swallowing up American products--especially hot tubs--though when it comes to pool creations and innovation, European builders continue to surpass and surprise.

"The European market is rich with historical and mature companies, while the market itself is in evolution," says Federico Maestrami, editor of Piscine Oggi, a Bologna, Italy-based trade magazine covering pool construction and design.

"The strong concept of family, more free time for work [and] the knowledge that an active lifestyle improves our existence 'has made the home a place of refuge and wellness," Maestrami notes. "From this comes the organic and natural house, [which] is being reflected in the design of pools with a tendency toward minimalism and the choice of natural materials more harmonious with the environment."

It's a spa world

One of the fastest-growing areas of this "natural" trend in the European market is hot tubs. Approximately 37,000 hot tubs will be sold in Europe in 2004--a whopping 40 percent increase over the prior year, according to a study conducted by Consult GB, an international market research firm based in Canterbury, Great Britain. That market is heavily dependent on portable hot tubs imported from North America, with more than half coming from the United States.

The key to hot tub sales seems to be the wellness concept. Focusing on homeopathic solutions and the creation of an organic lifestyle, wellness infiltrates the personal, social and professional spheres of European lives, with some companies allowing their employees time off for health and wellness retreats.

Since the time of ancient Rome, hot-water therapy and bathing were luxuries of the wealthy, used to ease all sorts of maladies, says Dr. Christian Ochsenbauer, managing director of the German Association of the Recreational and Medicinal Barb Industry, based in the city of Essen. Saunas comprise a significantly larger segment of the wellness industry in Europe than in the United States, having gained popularity because of their association with Turkish steam baths.

"Wellness is a big thing in Europe," confirms Chris Robinson, chairman of NSPI's Hot Tub Council and director of sales/ marketing at Cordova, Tenn.-based Lucite International, which makes acrylic spa shells. He says European hot tub sales grew upward of 20 percent last year, and he expects similar increases in 2004.

"Europeans go to destination spas on a regular basis," Robinson adds. "It's much more a part of their lifestyle than it is here. The idea of hydrotherapy, hydromassage, aromatherapy, soothing sounds and visuals--hot tubs fit well with that."

He says countries such as the United Kingdom and Russia are likely to witness the largest growth, especially among people who only want hot tubs. "They fit into the backyard better," Robinson says.

As a result, hot tubs are sold by pool retailers and sauna specialists, who market them as products for well-being. Until recently, many Europeans were misinformed about the products. "It's a new market in France," Kornstein explains. "French people didn't know what a spa was before. The only picture they had of a spa was from America, with a man and two women inside.

"The market had to educate and help [them] understand why a spa is good when used for the neck and back health, and, of course, for pleasure," he adds.

This shift in understanding has poised the hot tub segment for growth. "Sales are still comparatively small, but the [pie] is getting bigger all the time," says Christina Connor, editor of Swimming Pool News, a London-based trade magazine. "Portable spas are riding on the crest of this [home and garden] wave."

Playing dress-up

As Connor indicates, hot tubs are a new phenomenon in Europe. However, the strength of the continent continues to be in its fashionable pool industry.

Compared with the more than 7.5 million pools in the United States, the European market is a slice amounting to about 30 percent of the American pie. The European market grows at a rate of nearly 100,000 new pools each year, estimates Assopiscine, the Brescia, Italy-based trade association representing pool builders.

Still, the European market's small size has not kept it from being known for stylistic innovations. For example, French magazines from the late 1800s featured versions of the vanishing-edge design about a century before the effect was popularized by U.S builders. Now, features such as tiled pools, slot overflow systems and the heavy inclusion of natural stone--all regular elements of European pools--are entering the U.S. pool vernacular.