Now at a mall near you: Massage

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Relax. Now ponder the meaning of massage.

Think beaded curtains and New Age mantras? Maybe a day of overpriced pampering at a spa in Sedona or some other luxury resort ? Try again.

Like specialty coffee, hardware supplies, exercise and oil changes, massage therapy has gone mass market - perhaps no surprise for an industry that treats nearly 50 million Americans each year and generates annual revenues of at least $6 billion annually (or much more by some estimates).

John Leonesio started Massage Envy four years ago in a Scottsdale, Ariz., shopping center after decades as a health club owner and manager in the Midwest. The chain now has 120 locations in 20 states, with another 243 franchises in the works.

For $49 a month, Massage Envy members are entitled to one 60-minute massage session. (Fees are $10 higher in costlier markets such as San Francisco.) Additional massages are just $39, a sharp discount on the industry standard of $60 to $80 per hour.

There are few pretensions, and fewer frills, at Massage Envy. Most can be found in high-traffic strip malls, locations designed to attract both walk-in customers and first-timers, many of whom are men. The clinics operate seven days a week and remain open until 10 p.m. on weekdays.

"People are no longer looking at it as a luxury," said Leonesio, the company's chief executive officer. "We saw a chance to create a brand."

For working mother Liz Hanlon, 44, the chain's extensive weekend hours offer an opportunity for temporary relief from an otherwise hectic existence.

Unlike the spas she frequented while living in Pensacola, Fla., Massage Envy and its therapists focus on her aches and pains, said Hanlon, a recent transplant to Missouri.

"It seems a lot more professional here," said Hanlon, a radio station manager. "I go for therapeutic massage, not to relax."

Massage Envy is not the only player in the market.

In Texas, a regional company called Massage Heights has opened 16 locations in San Antonio and Austin, with plans to franchise nationally. A Southern California company, Well Kneaded Massage Inc., operates a nationwide massage therapy referral service.

And in San Francisco, the man credited with popularizing chair massage has teamed up with a former World Bank development officer to create Zubio, a company that plans to install massage kiosks in airports, malls, medical centers and university campuses nationwide.

"It's almost like ordering a latte at Starbucks. It's very consistent," said Sam Keller, the company's chief executive officer. "The big vision is to make massage more convenient and accessible in society."

While firm numbers are difficult to come by, industry experts say that corporate massage outlets were barely on the radar until recently. The idea, though, isn't brand-new: a decade ago, the founder of The Learning Annex adult-education service created the Great American BackRub Store with similar visions of a nationwide network of massage outlets. A few outlets remain, but the growth didn't approach early expectations.

Despite the sometimes-uninspiring exteriors (the Columbia Massage Envy is sandwiched between a nutritional supplements store and a coffee shop), the new massage outlets offer the same basic services as traditional massage spots.

Once inside one of the company's 12 massage rooms, soothing music and calming sounds of water await. Customers are asked their personal preferences - Swedish, deep tissue or sports treatment massage- and can be matched with either a preferred therapist or the first available one.

For therapists, corporate massage outlets offer the chance to let someone else worry about scheduling appointments, buying ads, answering the phone, stocking oils, powders and lotions, even doing the laundry.

Christine Dunne, 24, joined Massage Envy after working at a salon where her income depended on selling shampoo, conditioner and other beauty supplies, she said.

"You don't have to sell hair products," she said. "It's all about massage."

Massage Envy customers aren't the only ones saving money. The company's therapists in Columbia earn just $15 per massage half of what a therapist would typically make elsewhere.

The pay scale is a tradeoff, said Massage Envy therapist Vicki Purdy.

"It's a balancing act," said Purdy, a former schoolteacher who switched careers several years ago. "People are more prone to tip better because they pay less up front."

Purdy and her colleagues receive training that equals if not exceeds the standards for their counterparts at spas and solo practices, according to Massage Envy officials. New hires are expected to graduate from massage schools and are offered regular opportunities for continuing education.

The arrangement is not without its critics. Jeff Rioux, a massage therapy instructor in Columbia, compared corporate massage outlets to such mega-chains as Wal-Mart and Home Depot, a similarity he called troubling.

"It's very much a bottom-driven, top-down managed...business," he said.

Just as Starbucks touts its consumer exposure to gourmet coffee as a benefit for smaller, independent coffee shops, purveyors of mass-market massage suggest that their presence benefits the entire industry by exposing more average folks to a product with the reputation as the province of the well-heeled.

Nearly one-quarter of Massage Envy's customers are newcomers to touch therapy, said Leonesio.

"We're reaching a whole new population," he said.

One of those newcomers is Jamie Davidson, 23, a Columbia tree trimmer who bought a Massage Envy membership for his girlfriend and decided to try massage himself.

That wouldn't have been the case at a spa or beauty salon, he said.

"I don't see myself going to a day spa," said Davidson.

Les Sweeney, president of Associated Bodywork Massage Professionals, an industry trade group, agrees with Leonesio's assessment that the new massage places likely will expand the industry overall.

"It's an opportunity to bring massage to the masses," said Sweeney. "Exposing more individuals to the benefits of massage is a good thing."

Even Rioux, whose boss at the Massage Therapy Institute of Missouri declined an offer by Massage Envy to become the company's exclusive provider of new therapists, acknowledged that the business practices transforming the heretofore touchy-feely world of massage are here to stay.

"Massage therapists are notorious for not being business-minded," he said. "Good or bad, the introduction of a business like Massage Envy is going to force us to be more business-minded, more savvy, in the way we market ourselves. It could be a rude awakening."