Therme Group founder and CEO Robert Hanea took a year to convince Mah Bow Tan to lead the development of Therme Singapore, set to open in 2030. The Romanian entrepreneur explains why wellness follows where the water flows.
Explaining what to expect at Therme Group’s “wellness destinations” in Europe is not an easy task. Vague terms like “well-being”, “wellness” and “hydrotherapy” convey only certain segments of the 10-year-old Therme Bucharest, which features up to 44,000 sqm of wellness, leisure and spa space spread across two floors.
This reporter struggled to adequately capture the breadth of treatments on offer, even after a visit to the Romanian attraction in May. How much more foreign the concept must have been nearly a decade ago, when Therme Group founder and CEO Robert Hanea pitched a Singapore location to former national development minister Mah Bow Tan.
In his proposal, Hanea wished to bring into Singapore a “large-scale urban wellness destination”, specifically in Marina Bay. Mah, who had then retired from politics, initially “struggled” to grasp Therme’s concept and declined to be involved.
Unwavering in his vision, Hanea returned a year later with the same idea. The two met, and Mah decided to visit Therme Bucharest himself.
Now chairman of Therme Group Asia and the upcoming Therme Singapore, Mah has clearly had a change of heart. “In the early stages, it was not easy to explain the concept,” says Mah at Therme Singapore’s groundbreaking ceremony on June 19. “Like me, many people had not experienced anything like it before. Was it a spa? A water park? A garden? A wellness resort? A longevity retreat? In truth, it was none of these and all of these.”
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Perhaps the obstacle is cultural. Romania-born Hanea chose to set up Therme Group’s first destination in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany, as the Germans were more familiar with the sauna and bathing culture then. Therme Bucharest only opened six years later, in 2016. “When we started the project in Bucharest, [we encountered] the same questions we expect around the world: ‘Why do you think it will work here? Do you think the population will accept it here?’,” Hanea tells City & Country.
Right off the bat, however, Therme Bucharest was a success, says Hanea. “The population and the entire audience welcomed the project; [Therme] Bucharest was actually our first project in Europe that had over 1 million visitors in its first full year of operation. It was embraced by the community better and stronger than we [had] even thought.”
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Therme Group calls itself “a global pioneer of inclusive urban well-being”, drawing inspiration from communal bathing and wellness traditions across cultures, including the Roman bathhouse (thermae), Turkish hammam and Japanese onsen.
Therme Bucharest now hosts “the largest sauna festival in the world”, adds Hanea. Held over 21 days in October last year, Sauna Fest 2025 featured 800 shows and over 100 Aufgussmeisters (Aufguss masters). These are trained sauna professionals who guide guests over a 12-minute sauna session, infusing herbs and essential oils into steam.
“We created a culture that is now leading [the world] from a culture that maybe 10 years ago didn’t exist; we expect that to be true for every location,” says Hanea.
‘Inclusive’ well-being
Speaking in Dubai last year, Hanea said Therme Group could welcome between 25 million and 36 million people a year across its global locations within the next decade. This is at least four times the group’s current near-6 million visitor count across its five facilities in Europe: Bucharest, Frankfurt, Euskirchen, Sinsheim and Titisee-Neustadt.
Therme Singapore is part of the group’s aggressive global expansion; locations have been unveiled across a number of global cities: Manchester, Ontario, Seoul, Dubai, Dallas and Washington, DC. According to Hanea, each new facility coming online in the next five to seven years will add between 2 million and 2.5 million visitors each year.
Speaking on two panels at the World Cities Summit (WCS) 2026 in Singapore over June 15 and 16, Hanea highlighted how global cities are “very crowded places” that are “built for economic growth”, where people “are not really integrating and socialising with each other” because they lack the infrastructure.
Each Therme destination is designed as a year-round facility that combines thermal bathing, wellness treatments, leisure attractions and cultural experiences. Hanea posits that Therme’s parks are a panacea for urban loneliness, and the group is committed to ensuring that this experience is inclusive to all — starting with keeping admission fees affordable.
Entrance to Therme Bucharest, for example, starts at 56 Romanian lei ($15.91) for seniors seeking a three-hour period in the kid-friendly “Galaxy” zone. Adults pay 71 lei for the same tier. On the other end of the pricing spectrum, full-day access to all three zones will set an adult visitor back 217 lei at peak periods, or around $62.
Will Therme Singapore charge a similar amount? It is too early to tell. “Our core ethos of the company is affordability and inclusivity,” replies Hanea. “You need to create spaces where the design and programming bring people together, and they feel they belong in that space... We do a lot of work when we are grounding our projects into any location around the world to understand the culture, to understand what people really need.”
He adds: “We try to do all of that in order to be very sure that it’s not just affordable in an economical sense, but also addressable to the larger population.”
Asia plans
With more than 20 indoor and outdoor pools and water bodies over seven storeys and a basement, Therme Singapore is slated to open in 2030 as Asia’s “first large-scale integrated urban well-being destination”. It will span more than 720,000 sq ft of gross floor area, equivalent to over nine football fields.
The $1 billion project broke ground on June 19, marking the start of multi-year construction works at Marina South by Therme Group in partnership with Kajima Overseas Asia (Singapore).
This is Therme Group’s first time working with the regional branch of Kajima Corporation, one of Japan’s oldest construction and real estate companies. The development is designed by DP Architects in collaboration with Therme Group’s in-house architects.
Mah, who is based here, will also oversee the group’s upcoming South Korea location. Therme Incheon, set to open in 2031, will welcome “upwards of one million people per year”, according to the group’s website.
“[Therme Incheon] is at an earlier stage of development,” Mah tells City & Country. “The site is already there; in terms of the actual design, in terms of the programming, in terms of how much public-private space [it will have]… that’s still being discussed.”
Therme Singapore is expected to welcome approximately 2 million visitors annually at full capacity, with around half being international visitors. “We don’t think about size that way,” says Hanea, comparing the two projects. ”But at this point in time, I think Singapore has a larger footprint.”
Mah will also oversee Therme Dubai, the group’s first location in the Middle East. Slated to open in 2028, it will feature the world’s largest indoor botanical garden. Together, these three locations form Therme Group Asia.
Therme Group “will explore a lot of the Asian markets”, says Hanea. That said, the group will also be “very conservative”, he adds. “There are a lot of cities and a lot of markets coming towards us, trying to get us to invest in one region or the other, but we want to see Singapore, Korea and Dubai up and running [first], and as that develops, we will announce other locations.”
Entering Manchester and North America
Halfway across the world, works are set to be completed at Therme Manchester “in the next 30 months”, says Hanea. The GBP400 million ($688 million) project — dubbed the UK’s “first urban well-being resort” — is set to open in 2028.
Twice the size of the Bucharest location, Therme Manchester will draw from a catchment of more than 20 million people across the north of England, from the cities of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham, says Hanea.
Over in the US, the group’s US business includes a joint venture with real estate developer Georgetown Company. There, the group is developing two projects: Therme Washington and Therme Dallas.
The Washington, DC facility has been planned for Poplar Point along the Anacostia River, while the Dallas location will be situated in North Texas. Hanea says the timeline for both projects will be announced “by the end of this year”.
Further north, Therme’s plans for Canada have met with some resistance. Therme Canada Ontario Place, first announced in 2021, has spawned investigative reports by the New York Times and Toronto Star, which allege that the group inflated its track record during a selection process.
A day after Therme Singapore was announced in November 2025, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) responded to media queries saying there was “no misrepresentation of track record” in Therme Group’s tender submission. “The premier of Ontario and the minister of infrastructure had confirmed that Therme’s proposal met the required standards and passed the necessary evaluations,” said a Therme spokesperson.
Jobs for locals
At WCS 2026, Hanea sat alongside mayors and public officials from Kigali, Bogota, Melbourne and Madrid, among others. What is on his checklist when assessing new locations for the group?
It takes “anywhere from four to seven years” to bring a Therme project to life, says Hanea. “When you start the project, that will take so many years from inception to operation. But if you want to give one word to that, it is trust — trust that it can be delivered, trust that you have the right partner, trust that it is in the right place for that society.”
When open, Therme Singapore will create an estimated 400 new jobs, including roles in hospitality. To support workforce development, Therme Singapore has signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and Republic Polytechnic, offering projects, internships and employment pathways for graduates.
The Singapore authorities have highlighted that Therme Singapore must have a “core” of Singapore staff, both at the management and supervisory levels, says Mah. The MOUs will allow Therme Singapore to tap young talent in the hospitality business, he adds, and even design training programmes with workers in the spa and wellness business.
“As you know, manpower is a big constraint for us, so that’s our way of both giving back and collaborating with society, as well as solving our issues,” says Mah. “We are in the people business, so we will need to have very well-trained, capable and motivated staff. We won’t be waiting until 2030 to start recruiting; we’re starting now.”
STB did not provide a grant to Therme Singapore; the project is a private sector development. Former JTC Corporation CEO Tan Boon Khai, who was announced as CEO of Therme Group Singapore in February, says the Singapore government, STB and Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) have been “very supportive”.
Tan expects Therme Singapore’s design and programming to appeal to a range of visitors. “This was something that you saw also in Bucharest, where you have the elderly coming in the mornings; and in the afternoon, the profile changes — we have families; at night, it’s the young people. It’s that inclusiveness that [allows] all these people to come in — all families, all ages.”
Photos and images: Therme Bucharest, Therme Singapore, Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore
Read more about Therme Singapore:
$1 bil ‘well-being destination’ Therme Singapore breaks ground at Marina South
Mah Bow Tan-led Therme Group to develop $1 bil wellness hub in Marina South
