From international cruise liners to leading a 40-person team at one of South Africa’s most recognisable luxury destinations, Lena Manamela has built a career at the intersection of wellness, hospitality and leadership. This Women’s Month, her journey offers a reminder that professional growth is often built quietly, through experience, education and the willingness to keep evolving.
Behind every memorable wellness experience is a team of people who understand that luxury is about more than beautiful surroundings. It is about how people are welcomed, how they are cared for and how they feel when they leave.
At Royal Spa & Salon at The Palace of the Lost City, Sun City, that experience is part of Lena Manamela’s everyday world.
As Spa Manager, Manamela leads a team of 40 and oversees the day-to-day operation of the spa, from people management and guest experience to maintaining the high service standards expected within a luxury hospitality environment.
But her journey to leadership has been more than a decade in the making.
From wellness to leadership
With more than 12 years of experience across health, wellness and beauty, and over eight years in management, Manamela has built her career through a combination of practical experience, international exposure and continued learning.
Her career has also taken her beyond South Africa’s borders, including time working aboard international cruise liners. The experience exposed her to different cultures, expectations and approaches to hospitality, while developing her understanding of guest experience, leadership, human resources and operational excellence.
Today, those lessons form part of the leadership approach she brings to Royal Spa & Salon.
She joined the team in February 2023, just months after the spa opened in November 2022, and has since been part of its growth within South Africa’s luxury wellness landscape.
During this period, Royal Spa & Salon has received significant industry recognition, including Best Hotel Spa in South Africa 2024, Best Spa Design in South Africa 2024 and Best Spa Facilities in South Africa 2025.
In 2026, the spa reached another milestone when it was named a finalist in the Professional Beauty World Spa Awards in London in the Spa of the Year – Africa category.
While these accolades belong to Royal Spa & Salon, they also speak to the standards maintained by the team Manamela leads and the environment she is responsible for managing.
Where wellness meets business
What makes Manamela’s journey particularly interesting is the way she has combined the world of beauty and wellness with business leadership.
She holds a BTech in Somatology and a Postgraduate Honours Degree in Business and is currently completing the final year of her Master of Business Administration (MBA).
It is an academic journey that reflects an understanding that modern wellness leadership requires more than technical expertise. It requires an appreciation of people, operations, strategy and business growth.
Her willingness to share what she has learnt has also taken her onto industry platforms. Manamela was a featured speaker at Professional Beauty South Africa in 2022 and returns as a speaker in 2026, contributing her experience to conversations shaping the professional beauty, health and wellness sector.
Creating experiences that travel beyond the treatment room
Working within The Palace of the Lost City also places Manamela at the intersection of wellness, tourism and luxury hospitality.
That intersection came to life during the inaugural Ambassadors Forum 2026, when ambassadors and their partners were hosted for a wellness experience at Royal Spa & Salon.
For Manamela, welcoming guests from different parts of the world is also a reflection of something she encountered much earlier in her career: the universal nature of hospitality.
Regardless of language, nationality or background, people remember how an experience made them feel.
And increasingly, wellness itself has become part of that experience.
Travellers are no longer necessarily treating wellness as an occasional indulgence. Rest, restoration and personal wellbeing are becoming part of how many people think about travel, hospitality and quality of life.
It places professionals such as Manamela in an evolving industry where beauty, health, hospitality and business increasingly meet.
A Women’s Month story about becoming
There is another layer to Manamela’s journey that feels particularly relevant during Women’s Month.
Her story is not simply about reaching a management position. It is about continuing to develop after reaching it.
More than 12 years into her career, she is still studying, still learning and still expanding the scope of what she can contribute.
That commitment to growth may ultimately be one of the most powerful aspects of her story.
Women’s Month creates an opportunity to celebrate women who are building businesses, leading organisations and changing industries. But it can also recognise the women doing the daily work of leading teams, developing people, maintaining standards and steadily building careers that create opportunities for others.
For Manamela, leadership in wellness has become a combination of service, people and continuous development.
From the international cruise industry to the heart of Sun City, her career demonstrates that there is no single path to leadership.
Sometimes, it is built one experience, one qualification, one team and one opportunity at a time.
And perhaps that is one of the most fitting messages with which to close Women’s Month: there is always room to grow, to learn and to become more than the position you currently occupy.