Barcelona opens Alura, a commercial gallery of beauty centers

A temple for well-being and personal care. Barcelona has just incorporated Alura into its commercial offer, a complex that brings together multiple establishments with a premium positioning and occupies the underground part of the old Pedralbes Centre shopping center, in the El Dau building, owned by Colonial. The office building converted its commercial galleries into a Uniqlo store and now completes its transformation with the opening of Alura, which opened its doors in mid-September with brands such as Bella Aurora, Ivan Mañero, Anthony Llobet, Ali D'Aria, Thai Massage, Back Stage, New Look, Alberto Cerdán, Mesoestetic and Good Nails by Raffel Pages.

Alura is presented as a very novel format, both for the idea of grouping different high-end beauty and wellness brands in the same space, and for its operating model, which aims to resemble a club concept more than a conventional commercial gallery. Thus, Alura has a single online and telephone reservation center and a reception service that takes care of receiving clients, offering them a drink and accompanying them to the establishment they have booked, and also collecting payment. In this sense, the aim is to prioritize the customer experience and make them feel special, a key element for loyalty and for attracting a segment of the public with high purchasing power and very demanding.

To achieve this experience, Alura has taken care of every detail to build a visually very attractive space, with an investment that has reached three million euros, according to Expansión. To this figure must be added the investment made by each of the brands that occupy the different premises that make up Alura and that pay rent to the promoting group, Cijanaca, owned by various entrepreneurs, such as Alex Herrera, Jordi Fainé, Javier López-Pinto, Ramón Núñez, Ferran Conti and Ana Turu.

Alura is accessed from Joan Güel street, next to El Corte Inglés de Diagonal, by a large staircase that leads to an impressive underground hall equipped with a unique skylight that allows natural light to enter. In this large reception area, there is a reception desk and a waiting area with a lounge-bar. In Alura there are up to four hair salons, from the brands Back Stage Hair Care, New Look, Alberto Cerdan Space and Atelier Anthony Llobet. One of the largest premises is occupied by Thai SPA Massage, a reference in Thai massages, which has multiple cabins for individual or couple treatments.

In Alura, the cosmetic brand Bella Aurora has decided to open its first flagship, which until now did not have its own premises. Mesoestetic, Ali d'Aria and Basics by Mercè are other firms present in the complex, which is completed with a plastic surgery and aesthetic and dental medicine clinic, IM Clinic, by Dr. Ivan Mañero; and with the Nakuma restaurant, which will offer Japanese fusion cuisine.

In total, Alura has an area of 2,300 square meters, of which a quarter corresponds to common areas and the rest to the premises occupied by the different businesses. Currently, only one space remains available for a new brand that contributes to completing the range of services offered. Alura's goal is to achieve a base of 10,000 recurring customers, with 150,000 visits per year and an aggregated turnover among the different businesses of ten million euros.

The group of investors behind Alura plans to repeat the experience in other Spanish cities and in Portugal. The idea is to inaugurate a similar center in Madrid in 2022 and weave a network of 20 centers in the next decade.