About us
Created as a joint venture between Harding Brothers Spa Division and Multitrax Maritime, The OnboardSpa Company is rich in heritage and overflowing with an abundance of industry expertise and experience. Multitrax has an extensive background in the maritime, spa and fitness industries and is the perfect match to the heritage and expertise within Harding Brothers Spa Division. Harding Brothers have an unprecedented 80 year maritime history and are award winning world leaders in the retail arena of the maritime business.
Neil Harding, CEO of Harding Brothers Holdings, said: "Our business, which is described in detail within this web site, is all about people - our dedicated staff and managers, our commercial partners and, of course, our customers. Our philosophy is always to strive to offer each of these groups of people as positive, professional and high-quality a service as possible."
Harding Brothers’ original ship business was formed in 1927 and 80 years on, we are still trading out of our Bristol head office building.
But we have not stood still and since then, our tax and duty-free retail business and our health and fitness spa businesses have each been developed, and we now have offices in Southampton, Tilbury, Scotland and Europe. Neil Harding won Harding Brothers first retail contract onboard Russian Cruise Line vessels during the 1980s. This was the starting block for a fast growing future with the retail division now running over 45 shops worldwide onboard some of the world’s most luxury cruise lines. Cunard, owner of the most famous cruise line in the world, the Queen Mary Two, awarded the retail contract to Harding Brothers in 2004 and we have delivered unrivaled service onboard which has led us to win the contract for Cunard's new vessel, the "Queen Victoria".
Harding Brothers spa division has, like the retail division, grown rapidly over the last decade. Neil Harding was offered the spa contract for the P&O vessels in 2002. Since then the business has developed into a multimillion pound business operating over 20 cruise liners, including Cunard’s Queen Victoria.
Harding Brothers then strengthened further with the restructure of the management team. We have appointed as Chairman Barry Gibson, one of the biggest names in duty free retailing as a former retail director of BAA plc. Following Barry's appointment we have appointed as Director of Buying Alyson Reilly, former Buying Director for World Duty Free. Alyson has now reduced her role to that of Consultant and her day to day responsibilities have been taken on by a new appointee, Brian Smith. With Neil Harding as the CEO and Harold Gittelmon as the managing director, the management team are second to none.
This year itself has been one of Harding Brothers biggest jumps. Not only does the eagerly waiting Queen Victoria make its maiden voyage, but both retail AND spa contracts for P&O’s largest cruise ship to date, the Ventura have been given to Harding Brothers. Harding Brothers Spa this year has joined forces with Multitrax, who have a considerable amount of onboard knowledge and will help Harding Brothers grow even further. Together they have created “The Onboard Spa Company”. Multitrax CEO, Darryl Preston will take over as Managing Director for this division.
Multitrax is one of the world’s most progressive fitness organisations with over a decade of experience within the industry. The company is dedicated to service, quality, customer-care and value for money.
Proud to be the market-leader, Multitrax has an extensive fitness portfolio including: premier health clubs, fitness instructor education and events, music, DVDs, equipment and apparel.
As part of a rapidly evolving sector, Multitrax aims to remain a major driving force in promoting health and fitness at the highest level.
Multitrax was originally established as a Fitness Music and Fitness Education Company 10 years ago,
however, the individual depth of the business partners extends back much further into the 1980s,
both on land and at sea. Darryl Preston, Executive Director, first went to sea as a Sports Officer in 1986,
became an Assistant Cruise Director prior to launching spa programs onboard numerous cruise lines.
The Multitrax board of directors is comprised of some of the industry's top specialists in the
field of health, fitness and well-being bringing a wealth of expertise and creating
cutting-edge products, programmes and innovations.
Based in London, adjacent to Canary Wharf. Our educators and creative music producers are based all around Europe. Multitrax is one of the world’s largest professional fitness companies with distributors and licencees in 54 different regions, selling
Multitrax music, evolution video, studio and pilates equipment. Multitrax owns, distributes and represents many unique branded workout programs, such as Push and Lift, M.I.C.//, Spirals, the Pilates Institute, Zumba and Gravity. Products also
include the publications trax and Reps. It also hosts the UK's largest fitness event
- the Multitrax Fitness Forum Convention and Expo, which runs alongside Professional Beauty
and Professional Spa (Europe's largest trade-show for the beauty industry). Its
subsidiaries include Alpha Distribution, Etraproperties, Multitrax Concept Clubs,
Multitrax Metro Club
and the Pilates Institute.