While it’s no secret that demand for wellness continues to increase across all sectors, today’s travelers are redefining what that means within the hospitality space, seeking experiences that extend well beyond the traditional spa treatments and fitness classes.
Hotels with strong wellness provisions tend to perform better. Wellness tourists spend more. Hotels are increasingly recognising the value of wellness as a key differentiator in the hospitality industry. How frequently have you encountered such statements in recent years?
Spas are an expected amenity for most luxury and ultra luxury hotels, and properties with savvy operators are benefiting greatly from luxury travelers increasingly willing to spend on spa. Spas are also mandatory under the brand standards for certain luxury and ultra-luxury brands, as well as a requirement to comply with Forbes Five Star Standards.
Wellness is a huge growth area for hotels. In hospitality, we can succinctly define this as products, services, amenities and other features that deliver guest wellbeing. Concurrently, longevity is the concept that humans can live longer while also living healthier within those new years afforded to them (‘healthspan’).
As advisors to upscale and luxury hotels, we’re always first looking holistically as to why a guest is choosing this specific hotel and why they are willing to pay substantially more per night for that experience. This is what we call the ‘reason to visit’ or R2V.
During the EHL Open Innovation Summit in Lausanne, we had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Felicitas Morhart, Full Professor of Marketing at HEC Lausanne, to explore how the emerging field of longevity is starting to reshape luxury hospitality. Our conversation touched on the intersection of biotech wellness, status-driven self-optimization, and the evolving role of luxury as a space for beauty, presence, and what it means to remain human in an increasingly optimized world.
The wellness travel sector is experiencing unprecedented growth, with the Global Wellness Summit predicting spending on wellness tourism to reach $9 trillion by 2028. This surge reflects an evolving consumer focus on health, relaxation, and holistic well-being, as travelers increasingly seek experiences that allow them to recharge mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Sitting down for breakfast with Tammy Pahel, Vice President of Spa and Wellness Operations at the Carillon Miami Wellness Resort (hereafter abbreviated as “the Carillon”), offers nothing short of a world of insight in the vast and restorative power that comprehensive wellness programming can bring to a hotel. Touching on all subject matter from nutrition, sleeptech and advances in fitness through to transformative wellness group retreats, energy healing and the future of the spa industry, two hours fly by before it’s time to head off to experience one of the hotel’s signature touchless therapy circuits.
Travelers are looking for a little extra R&R, and independent hotel operators are perfectly positioned to offer wellness-focused services that can set them apart. Overlooking these services can be a costly mistake for properties hoping to capture this growing demand, especially for properties located in the shadow of larger resorts.
As global wellness tourism nears the staggering $1 trillion mark, a powerful transformation is reshaping the luxury and lifestyle hospitality sectors. No longer confined to indulgence or relaxation alone, luxury travel today increasingly centers around health optimization, life extension, and holistic well-being.
The best way to come to grips with artificial intelligence (AI) for spa and wellness is through the phrase ‘technology-adjacent therapies’. That is, for our industry where human-to-human contact is ever-so-centric to guest satisfaction, it’s not that automation will supplant practitioners but that these contemporary tools will offset the undesirable, repetitive tasks to augment the experience. Hence, hoteliers and managers shouldn’t necessarily look to how AI can boost the guest journey but to their own teams’ experience, otherwise known as the software’s ‘end users’.
Wellness is no longer just a trend—it’s a movement reshaping industries, and the hospitality sector is no exception. In an era where sustainable self-care and mental health take center stage, global hospitality leader Accor is at the forefront, revolutionizing what it means to truly care for guests. This is not about spa retreats; it’s a paradigm shift that integrates well-being into every element of the guest experience.
Incorporating wellness initiatives into a brand that has no prior focus on the field of wellness may be viewed as a fruitless exercise. What benefit does wellness in hospitality achieve and who is searching for wellness?
Does innovation always need to be technology-based? Also in wellness, or in hospitality? This question comes up often during discussions with hospitality, wellness or spa colleagues. Being intrigued by the issue did a quick Google search: almost every page of the top hits Google found was referring to some sort of technological innovation.
If there’s one phrase to remember for how AI and spa will intersect, it’s ‘technology-adjacent therapies’. That is, for our industry where human-to-human contact is ever-so-centric to guest satisfaction, it’s not that automation will supplant practitioners but that these contemporary tools will offset the undesirable, repetitive tasks to augment the experience. Hence, hoteliers and managers shouldn’t necessarily look to how AI can boost the guest journey but to their own teams’ experience, otherwise known as the software’s ‘end users’.
If you would have asked us a year ago whether or not a robotic massage would work at a hotel wellness center, our answer would have been, “Only rarely.” Our judgment didn’t completely rule out these automated treatment tables from the welltech conversation, but we firmly believed that a great massage is achieved from both the physical pressure on muscles in combination with the psychological restoration that comes from the patient-therapist relationship.
Traveling is fundamentally positive for one’s wellbeing. It elevates the mood. It facilitates personal growth or transformation. And increasing evidence points to how a change in scenery and novel experiences help the memory centers of the brain to stay active, indicating travel as a leading endeavor to stave off dementia.
With so much to worry and wonder about these days, the widely publicized, albeit imagined scenario that sees artificial intelligence one day becoming so darn smart that it destroys all of humanity is probably not top-of-mind for most wellness seekers. Instead, those in the know should be contemplating the many ways that AI has turned the page to a new chapter of personal health management, and how they can take advantage of technological advancements to reach their desired state of wellbeing.
It is no secret that wellness and lifestyle have made their way into and established their value through the upper-upscale and luxury hospitality segments. In some cases, this has trickled down into extended stay and economy lodging markets. The momentum and demand for wellness programs has fast-tracked new programs that not only serve market and growth, but also create distinction, enhance market positioning, and mitigate risk while optimizing the performance of the business, amid wide and evermoving change. Some of these may be obvious, and many of these may not be popular, but nonetheless, I felt they were worth sharing.
There are more than 100 million Americans affected by chronic pain according to a study conducted by the Institute of Medicine. Chronic pain affects more Americans than Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Cancer combined. Most common is lower back pain in 27%, neck pain 15%, severe headache 15% and facial pain is 4%. Chronic pain affects more women than men leading to problems sleeping which makes pain worse. No wonder, 77% of people report feeling depressed due to chronic pain. The traditional way of pain management can be very risky with side effects, does not last (using steroids), and potential of hypertension and kidney disease with non-steroidal and even worse with opioid use which has caused many serious problems including death due to respiratory arrest, addiction, neuromuscular impairment which leads to falls. which could significantly interfere with travel plans and tourism activities.