1. Could you begin by introducing the Essence of Fiji Group and Nama Fiji, and how they fit together across spa operations, wellness services, training and your marine-based skincare brand?
I moved to Fiji in 1997, so I have been here for almost 30 years, and I saw the need to develop Fiji's spa tourism industry. I have a background in spa and in treating the skin with seaweeds and thalassotherapy, which is my passion. Being in a country like Fiji, surrounded by seaweeds, was very exciting for me.
My first role was to develop skillsets in Fiji. We opened our Spa Academy in 1998, which is still operating today as CIDESCO International School, something we are very proud of. Since 1998, we have been training local women and some men for Fiji's hotels and resorts.
There are now more than 400 resorts in Fiji, and virtually all of them have either beachside massage services or fully integrated spas. A lot of hotels invest quite heavily in their spa centers. Back then, however, we were still developing the industry.
One of the things I identified was that many tourists go to Bali and Thailand for spa experiences. Fiji had never really been known as a spa tourism destination. For me, it has been very important to develop the industry and educate people about the importance of spa tourism as a source of foreign income.
Spa is now one of the largest income-generating activities within Fiji's hotels, outside of food and beverage and accommodation. It is even bigger than diving. But beyond foreign income, what is particularly important to me is the employment it creates for women.
I have always been very passionate about supporting women in Fiji, and the school has been fundamental to that. We worked closely with the Australian Government, which provided 10 years of scholarships for rural women to train at our school. An independent impact study later showed how this work was changing women's confidence, livelihoods and career opportunities.
When we opened the academy in 1998, we also started spa operations in resorts so that our graduates would have immediate employment opportunities. It was therefore a holistic approach to training, recruitment and tourism development.
The company is Essence Group Fiji, and I then saw the need to manufacture skincare products. I realised that tourists did not necessarily want to buy products in Fiji that they could purchase in their own countries, particularly when those products were heavily marked up. With my background and knowledge of ingredients and seaweeds, I decided to create our own skincare brand.
My late husband was Fijian and came from the Yasawa Islands. That is where I first learned about Nama. I had already been researching seaweeds, and while I was pregnant with my son, I was eating Nama sea grapes. As they were popping in my mouth, I immediately thought that this was a natural resource that could have excellent efficacy for skincare.
I partnered with Aciar -James Cook University in Australia and began researching Nama sea grapes. From there, Nama Fiji evolved.
What makes it particularly exciting is that it aligns with my work supporting women in Fiji. We work with village women in the Yasawa Islands who harvest the Nama, providing much-needed revenue to their communities.
So the group has evolved from training and spa operations into a skincare business with an international ambition?
Exactly. The whole thing has evolved from training, spa operations and recruitment into the need for a skincare brand that we are now exporting globally.
2. Nama Fiji is built around Nama, the Fijian sea grape, or longevity seaweed. What first drew you to its potential, and how do you turn this traditional Fijian ingredient into a science-backed skincare line?
I did not want to create a product simply because it was made in Fiji. That is important for Fiji and our economy, but I also needed to make sure that we had a truly efficacious ingredient.
Because of my background as a trainer, having the academy and understanding skin outcomes and effects, I was able to look at the benefits of Nama sea grapes not simply as a skincare ingredient, but as something that could provide a genuine point of difference.
I learned that sea grapes are an organic, vegan alternative to hyaluronic acid. Everybody around the world knows hyaluronic acid in skincare, but many people do not realize that conventional hyaluronic acid can be produced using animal-derived or laboratory-based processes.
For me, it was very exciting to discover a vegan, organic alternative that has a different set of benefits. Nama hydrates in and around the skin cells and has anti-inflammatory properties, making it relevant to concerns such as rosacea and vascular-dilated skin conditions.
To me, it was about outcomes, efficacy, and having the evidence to prove and support our claims.
Having the academy allowed us to conduct clinical trials with pre- and post-treatment outcomes. I am proud that in Fiji we are able to offer not just a product for tourism, but a product supported by statistics, clinical trials and measurable outcomes.
3. Sustainability sits at the heart of your work, including your sustainable Nama harvesting program. How do you balance commercial growth with protecting Fiji's marine environment and ensuring the resource remains available for future generations?
This is extremely important to me. When you live on an island like Fiji, the environment is everything. It is one of the reasons tourists come here, alongside our culture and our beautiful people. Everything we do has to take the Blue Pacific into consideration.
Nama is a particularly sustainable ingredient. The village women have learned from their forefathers how to harvest it. The way they break the Nama allows it to regenerate within two to three weeks.
We are therefore not taking away from the village system because they also eat Nama. It is a healthy food and is sold at local markets.
We also worked with Market Development Facility, an arm of Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to establish a robust women's cooperative and fair-trade approach. We wanted to ensure that the women were paid appropriately for the Nama and that their health and wellbeing were considered.
For example, the women were dragging heavy sacks across the coral, damaging the coral and hurting their backs. We developed a system using floating rings to move the Nama across the coral more safely.
The whole structure was designed to protect the environment, ensure consistency of supply and demand, and provide sustainable revenue for the village communities and future generations.
4. Empowering women is central to your mission. Through the Spa Academy and your harvesting and production programs, how does the group create training, employment and opportunities for women, particularly those from rural and remote communities?
Our company is predominantly an all-woman company, although we do have two men: Nikki in the factory and my son, who has now joined the company and looks after marketing and his creation Nama For Men.
In any developing country, and particularly in the Pacific Islands, women have come a long way, but there are still significant challenges, especially for young women. Supporting training, development and employment opportunities is therefore a necessity.
We continuously look for ways to elevate women. We have tracking and impact systems for our women harvesters so we can understand the impact we are having and identify what needs to evolve as our relationships develop.
Climate change and other issues affecting our region also mean that we have to constantly adapt. From our impact tracking, we can identify how to upscale training and help women move further up the ladder into executive positions.
Our academy is accredited with CIDESCO International based in Switzerland, and we are launching the CIDESCO Diploma Spa Management Program in November. It is one thing to train women to become spa therapists, but we have also seen that many resorts bring in expatriates to run their spas as directors.
I saw the need to elevate our young people into executive-level positions, including spa directors.
The resorts are very excited about this.
We are also opening our first Nama Spa Global in Australia, and we will begin sending graduates on six-month rotations. We intend to franchise Nama Spas globally, giving our graduates international exposure before they return to Fiji and continue developing through our spa management program.
5. Your businesses sit at the intersection of tourism and manufacturing, with spa services in resorts and skincare products made in Fiji for export. How do these two sides support each other and strengthen Fiji's wider economy?
They definitely go hand in hand. We have become increasingly aware that having one without the other would not have the same impact.
The brand and manufacturing are supported by the clinical trials from the academy and by our partnerships with resorts in Fiji and internationally. We can offer recruitment, training and upskilling for existing therapists.
It becomes a holistic model: not only are you taking Nama Fiji because it is an efficacious product with outstanding results, but you also receive support that other brands cannot offer because of our academy, training and recruitment programs.
The two sides of the business are therefore essential to our ability to build more brand partnerships internationally.
6. Building a globally competitive wellness and skincare brand from an island nation carries unique challenges. What are the biggest opportunities and obstacles in producing in Fiji and taking Fijian products and services to international markets?
It is extremely challenging. I am very fortunate to have an incredible team because you cannot do anything without your team. I have amazing women working with me, and some have been with the company for 20 years. That shows how much they care about the company. I always say that the company belongs to all of us, not just me.
Manufacturing in Fiji can be challenging. One of our initial obstacles was obtaining the European licensing required to enter international markets.
I have also been helping the government identify challenges faced by SMEs. There is no point being export-ready if you cannot actually enter your target markets.
It is one thing to have a brand, product, marketing and a story. You also need the right licensing, capacity and consistency of supply. SMEs need to understand their target market and what capacity they can realistically fulfill.
A common issue in the Pacific is that SMEs partner with a large retail chain without having the capacity to supply it consistently. I was one of the early SMEs in Fiji to go through this process, so I had to learn many of these lessons the hard way.
Today, I mentor SMEs not only in Fiji but throughout the Pacific Islands so they can avoid some of the challenges I experienced.
Government agencies, Pacific Trade Invest and the International Trade Centre have also been very supportive, particularly in helping SMEs attend international trade shows. But I learned that having the right foundation in place is critical before entering those distribution channels.
COVID was another major challenge. We had launched Nama Fiji in the United States, and one of the makeup artists at the Grammy Awards used our brand. It was supposed to be our major launch, but within weeks COVID hit.
Post-COVID, we had to start again. The positive thing was that we were ready. We had become export-ready and had all the necessary foundations in place.
7. The global market is increasingly driven by natural, sustainable and clean wellness and beauty. How are Essence Fiji Group and Nama Fiji positioned within these trends, and what makes a Fijian marine-based offering stand out among international competitors?
Becoming a global brand was a completely different challenge from being a Fiji brand. In Fiji, we are part of an extended tourism family, and there is already demand from hotels and resorts.
To compete internationally, we needed to understand where we stood against other brands. We worked with distributors and organizations in the United States to compare our products with other retail and spa brands.
I believe my background and the academy give us an important point of difference. I have been able to create spa thalassotherapy protocols that most skincare companies do not have.
We have just launched our Nama Hammam, inspired by my experience of Turkish bath houses. Some resorts in Fiji are now building purpose-designed Hammam rooms for the Nama Hammam. We will also introduce it at our spa in Australia and then roll it out with other hotel and resort partners.
We have an edge because we bring a more holistic expertise and approach to everything we do. We do not simply sit still; we are constantly evolving.
Over the last 18 months, I have attended nine trade shows in Europe, the UK and predominantly the United States, and I have been able to compare our offering with international competitors. I can see that we have a significant point of difference.
We have also launched Nama Nurture wellness retreats. We hosted the CIDESCO World Congress in Fiji, bringing delegates from more than 56 countries. It was a game changer for our brand and for Fiji as a destination.
We brought our distributors to the Yasawas to experience the harvesting process with our women harvesters. This became our first Nama Nurture wellness experience.
The distributors can now go back and incentivize our spa partners to participate in these retreats. They can see the authenticity of our brand and the origin of our key ingredient.
They get to eat the Nama, meet the women harvesters, understand the impact we are having, experience our spa treatments and discover Fiji itself.
A lot of brands cannot show you where their key ingredients come from. We can take our partners directly to the source.
Everything we do, including our packaging, puts Fiji on a global stage for health, wellness and the Blue Pacific.
8. The United States is a major market for premium wellness and sustainable beauty. What opportunities do you see, particularly on the West Coast and in California, and how are you approaching that market?
The United States is a very big focus for us right now. As I mentioned, we had launched there before COVID, but in the years following the pandemic we put much of our energy back into Fiji because the resorts needed our support.
Over the last 18 months, we have returned to international trade shows and started building new relationships.
At the CIDESCO Congress, we also had Nancy Trent, a journalist from New York, who loved everything about our brand and stayed at some of our resort partners to experience Nama Fiji. She is now looking at how she can support our messaging and outreach.
It is very timely to have you here because California and the United States are important markets for both Fiji and Nama Fiji.
Skincare and spa therapy in the United States are massive industries. From attending trade shows, I have noticed a shift. There has been so much focus on Botox, fillers and cosmetic surgery, but I can now see people gravitating back towards natural wellness, natural skincare, longevity and prevention rather than cure.
I think it is very timely for our brand, especially in California, where people are increasingly looking for more sustainable and healthy skincare alternatives.
With direct flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco, Fiji is also very accessible. Our brand is showcased through Fiji Airways, and many tourists who stay at our higher-end resort partners experience Nama Fiji during their trip.
They then return to the United States asking where they can buy Nama Fiji.
So I think this is a very important focus for us, and I am very grateful for this opportunity to tell our story to California.
9. Finally, what message would you like to share with Los Angeles Times readers about Fiji as a source of world-class wellness and natural products, and about the opportunities for those looking to discover, partner with or invest in Fijian brands?
I would love these articles to reach investors who would like to help take Nama Fiji to the next level in the United States, particularly through outreach and partnerships.
There could also be opportunities for hotel chains that see the potential for Nama Fiji to become an exclusive brand within their properties.
We also have a new licensing model, creating opportunities for investors to establish Nama Spas throughout the United States, particularly beginning in California.
I believe our brand aligns very well with California, Miami and similar markets because of the climate, resort environment and connection with the sea. But hydration is fundamental to skin health in any climate.
Skin hydration is the foundation of skin health.
For hotels and resort spa chains, our model is particularly attractive because we provide everything needed, including the spa protocols required to roll out Nama Thalasso across a hotel chain.
I would welcome discussions with hotel groups, investors or partners interested in establishing Nama Spa locations throughout the United States.
Ultimately, I welcome investment interest that can help take Nama Fiji to a global level while continuing to create meaningful opportunities and impact for the women and communities behind the brand.
