France & Cambodia Business Forum: Antoine Bancel and the Bodia success story

Antoine Bancel's presentation at the first France-Cambodia Business Forum was relevant, well-focused and full of optimism. Remember that the next forum will take place this year from 8 to 10 July.

Antoine Bancel, fondateur de Bodia Spa

For those of you who don't know Bodia Spa, I'm going to give you a quick summary of what we do and why we're still here after all these years.

Today, Bodia Spa consists of seven centres spread between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and two training centres for our therapists, who are trained from A to Z in-house. We currently have 300 staff working in our establishments, which range in size from a tiny three-seater to larger premises accommodating up to 36 people.

“In terms of reputation, we are recognised internationally and Condé Nast Traveller ranked Bodia Spa among the top 10 in its category in Asia. Locally, Google and Trip Advisor also testify to our popularity.”

What makes Bodia what it is today, and what are we going to rely on to ensure our future after 15 years of development?

Up until now, we've been able to distinguish ourselves by the quality of our services: while massage has long been represented in Cambodia, luxury massage simply didn't exist before us.

The increase in the flow of tourists has also worked in our favour, rising from 2 million visitors in 2017 to over 6.5 million in 2018/2019, figures to which we hope to slowly return after the ordeal of Covid.

Methods

We also invested in property, with the particularity that here in Cambodia, ground floors are particularly expensive, unlike upper floors. We therefore sought to make the most of our premises and optimise the use of all the floors in the buildings.

Focus has been on communication, to make the spa a destination in its own right. This involved working with travel agencies.

Another challenge has been to raise the profile of the therapist profession, which until now has not been held in high esteem in Cambodia. This has been achieved through training and by giving a better view of the future, which has helped to raise the profile of the profession. As training was non-existent, it was necessary to develop appropriate structures: find premises, instructors and coordinate the different levels of apprenticeship.

The price of services was also an important consideration, as local customers are very sensitive to this.

Market

For the future, we are counting on the development of the Chinese clientele, whose tourists will soon be returning, as will the clientele from Europe.

We also have to reckon with stiffer competition now than we did 15 years ago, since we used to be the only ones in the sector, which is of course no longer the case. Staff turnover also has to be taken into account, as it is necessary to retain staff after training them, which is not always easy.

To come back to communications, the need to address a varied customer base means that we have to use many different platforms. We have to ensure that we have a presence in French, English, Khmer, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. This requires the mobilisation of internal resources as well as additional investment.

Development

The spa is not our only business, as we have also developed the Bodia Apothecary range, made entirely in Cambodia. Cosmetics, body care products and beverages: a total of 120 100% natural products, developed to European standards. Our production centre, which also houses a laboratory and a research and development centre, is located south of Phnom Penh. We use external service providers to carry out certain tests, such as the Pasteur Institute for toxicology. Partnerships have been set up with suppliers, craftsmen and local NGOs to integrate them into our development system. 36% of our suppliers are Cambodian, which may not seem like much at first glance, but is in fact a huge figure given the products and resources available in the country. Today, Bodia Apothecary employs around one hundred people.

“If we look back at past challenges, one of the main ones has been the lack of resources”

Cambodia has many aromatic plants and an ancestral culture of healers. This real local know-how is well documented, and it's this aspect that we wanted to use to develop our products.

While some sectors, such as food or construction, have well-trained engineers, this is not the case for cosmetics. So we had to bring in French engineers to develop our products.

The use of local resources requires producers to be brought together, but there are no cooperatives, which poses a problem. Take lemongrass, for example: to produce our essential oils, we need seven tonnes a year. Lemongrass is found absolutely everywhere in the country, but at the moment there is no one capable of bringing producers together. For us, this means a lot of logistical constraints and additional costs.

“In Cambodia, it's easier because supply points are readily available. Thailand and Vietnam supply packaging, labels and ingredients”

Looking to the future, the cosmetics market is growing all over the world, and that includes Cambodia. We're counting on exports to the European Union to be easy, as all our products already meet the required standards and certifications. Finally, the return of tourists will certainly bring a new dynamic to the sector.

We are also aiming to obtain certificates from the relevant ministries so that our products can be easily exported to ASEAN countries, which is quite complicated for cosmetics.

The communications department is set to expand over the next few years, with staff required for each target country. You don't communicate in the same way to the French, the Americans or the Cambodians.

Finally, if we want to become the leading Cambodian brand exporting quality products, we will need to find new export partners.