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Hong Kong has seen the opening of two extravagant hotel spas—at the Four Seasons and the Landmark Mandarin Oriental—in less than a year, but the grande dame of the city's hotels, the 78-year-old Peninsula, can hardly be expected to allow younger rivals to have the last word. Its $6 million response, the newly unveiled Peninsula Spa, sprawls across two floors and has been put together by ESPA, the pace-setting consultancy behind award-winning wellness facilities at the Bulgari Hotel in Milan, Barbados' Sandy Lane resort and many others.

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The Peninsula Spa has everything you would expect, given ESPA's imprimatur: elegant treatment rooms with harbor views, private VIP suites, hammam-style steam rooms, aromatherapy "experience showers" and the rest. The treatment beds, created by feted Irish designer Clodagh, even feature personal music systems (and to ensure that your relaxation is uninterrupted, air-conditioning units have been sound insulated and all spa telephones are located in a soundproof room). When your session is done, you can relax in the tea lounge, bask on the sun terrace or pad around in your Frette robe admiring the artwork, which includes an installation by New York video artist Monika Bravo.

The real point of difference, though, is the training given to the 50-strong staff. Covering 37 esoteric topics in over 530 hours of classroom and home study, and culminating in a 212-hour written paper and an oral exam in which the therapist must correctly diagnose a guest's ayurvedic mind and body type, the training is far more rigorous than the industry norm. Also unusual is the Peninsula Wellness program, designed to help guests maintain a healthy lifestyle in the hotel (with the aid of a "Guest Nutrition Consultant") and after their departure (via a take-home range of teas, essential oils, candles, CDs of soothing music and a cookbook). Not that guests will be in any hurry to leave. For more information, and the full range of treatment options, visit peninsula.com>.

• Liam Fitzpatrick
• Hong Kong's venerated Peninsula hotel opens one of the city's most extravagant spas