As the original, most popular, and finest spa brand in New Zealand, Hot Spring has long held a place at the forefront of the local spa pool industry.
Hot Spring was established for one main reason: to offer Kiwis high quality spas that were affordable to run. When the company was founded in 1980, this combination did not yet exist – in fact, the backyard spa pools available on the New Zealand market were just the opposite: poor quality and quite expensive to operate.
Having conducted his own search for a spa pool, and seeing a gap in the market, Hot Spring’s Director, Dale Paretovich, decided to create his own machine. An engineering teacher by trade, Dale fixated on how he might improve what was currently available, and in the years and decades since, his passionate, inquisitive and innovative spirit has become ingrained in the company he created.
Now partnering with Watkins Wellness, the world’s largest spa pool manufacturer, Hot Spring is New Zealand’s most popular spa pool brand, and offers the country’s most energy efficient machines.
From a Hillcrest home to New Zealand’s largest spa brand
While our beginnings were decidedly humble, over the course of decades our business and offerings have evolved significantly. So where did Hot Spring come from, and how did we get to where we are today? Join us on a journey through time.
1980: A new creation, an early partnership.
In 1980 our Director Dale Paretovich was in the market for a spa pool. Unable to find a machine that met his exacting standards, he decided to build his own. He got to work in his garage in Hillcrest, Auckland, and after some tinkering, he felt he had created something that had mass appeal.
1981: Establishing a name.
The following year Dale began the bulk importation of Hot Spring spa components from overseas. The resulting spa pools were distributed to key regions throughout New Zealand and as far as Australia.
1986: Continuing to innovate.
In the mid-80s we produced the first plug-in portable spa for the Australasian market. Such a spa is still a rarity on the market today – most require an electrician to install.
1989: Growth and expansion.
Having outgrown the Hillcrest address, Hot Spring moved into a warehouse located on Barrys Point Road in Takapuna. Here we continued to manufacture and distribute an ever-expanding range of products throughout Australasia. This is also the year that we formally established our joint partnership with Watkins Wellness, the largest spa pool manufacturer in the world.
1996: A purpose-built facility
Continued growth meant another move, this time to a new purpose-built warehouse and training facility in Albany, New Zealand, was on the cards. This allowed Hot Spring to continue manufacturing and distributing our products in Australasia and begin to offer them to the Southeast Asian market.
2009: The end of one era, the beginning of another.
After almost three decades of local production, we ceased our New Zealand manufacturing operations and began importing high-quality products directly from Watkins Wellness factories in California, Pennsylvania and Mexico.
2018: A dive into swim spas.
We introduced the New Zealand and Australian markets to the Endless Pools brand of swim spas, as a complement to our Hot Spring spa pool brand. Just 12 months later we would become the largest importer of Endless Pools swim spas.
2020: An online-only offering.
Seeing the opportunity presented by ‘staycations’ during the pandemic, at the height of COVID lockdown we launched a cost-effective brand, Islander Spa Pools, which we made available through spapoolsonline.co.nz.
2022: Swim spa success.
Just four years after we launched the brand, we became the world’s largest reseller of Endless Pools swim spas.
How Hot Spring has evolved over 4+ decades
Beginning in 1980, and through the decades since, at Hot Spring we’ve always aimed to be better. This can be seen in the significant improvements we’ve made to our products over the years, each of which has aimed to enhance the longevity, the efficiency and the soaking experience of our machines.
The proof is in the pudding, as many of our customers continue to enjoy their machines decades after they bought them!
What innovation has come from our never-ending search for improvement? Here are just a few examples:
Superior hydrotherapy
At Hot Spring we were responsible for the Moto-Massage, the world’s first moving spa jet, designed to maximise relaxation and relief by sweeping up and down your back. It came complete with customisable pressure, ensuring the stream was never too soft or too hard, and the design has since been enhanced further, with the upgraded Moto-Massage DX now featuring in our Highlife range of premium spa pools.
Highest energy efficiency
At Hot Spring we offer New Zealand’s most energy efficient spa pools. Our secret? Ensuring energy efficiency is front-of-mind throughout the design and manufacturing phases. We lower your power bills with features like high density foam insulation, fully insulated covers and innovations like hot air induction, which recycles the otherwise wasted heat generated by the internal machinery, and injects it back into the water.
Reducing spa maintenance
Owning a spa pool is less fun when you spend more time working on it than you do soaking in it… which is why Hot Spring invests in technologies that minimise the work and maximise the play. Case in point: our Freshwater Salt System, which uses simple cartridges to organically generate chlorine from salt, greatly reducing water maintenance and the need to drain and refill your spa.
Investing in quality materials and manufacturing
We work hard to source only the finest quality materials. Take our acrylic spa shells as an example: the shells found in the spa pools of other brands are commonly 3mm thick. Our acrylic spa shells are four times that thickness – a full 12mm. This ensures strength, longevity and maximum comfort. You can also trust us on capacity – if we say a spa can fit seven people, you can be confident it will seat seven comfortably.
We’re just getting started
At Hot Spring Spas New Zealand we’ve seen our spa pools evolve in leaps and bounds over our journey, and we know that this evolution will continue, and probably only accelerate, into the future.
We’re excited for that future, because we know that by continuing to do what we have always done – improve, enhance, evolve – we’ll be perfectly placed to continue supplying Kiwis with the finest spas on the market.
If you want to join us on the journey, get in touch with your local Hot Spring dealer and experience the Hot Spring difference today.
