Newsletter

With 2014 just around the corner, we'd like to share with you the wellness travel trends for the coming year.

 

Wellness travel is a fast growing segment of the travel and leisure industry. Travel is no longer just about the destination. Consumers are now viewing a vacation as an important way to improve health, happiness and productivity and wellness travel is seen as a personal investment. The release of the ‘Top 10 Wellness Travel Trends for 2014 offers insights on how businesses in the travel and hospitality industry can tap into this booming market.

1. Mindful Vacations
Consumers look to vacations that offer mental restoration. Mindful practices learned on a trip such as meditation, yoga, qi gong and journaling could be incorporated at home to help manage stress, improve cognitive capacity and maintain emotional equilibrium.

2. The Rise of Wellness Travel Agents
With the growing interest in trips to enhance mind, body and spirit, wellness tourism has created a new niche for travel agents to grow or expand their business while offering a personally and professionally rewarding career specialty.

3. Localyte
Consumers have developed a deeper appreciation for locally relevant and authentic experiences with an emphasis on living the local life. Mindsets have shifted away from tourist behavior to a keen interest in community-based exploration where getting to know the locals in a meaningful way sweetens the experience.

4. Food & Wellness

Food tourism is a big trend intersecting with wellness travel. Food tours, cooking classes, agriculture and farm-to-table experiences address the emotional, social, intellectual and sustainable aspects of wellbeing.

5. Vacation Remedy
Physicians are now prescribing vacations as an antidote from stress.  Doctor’s orders for physical activity in parks are also being written to help combat obesity and diabetes in children.

6. Quest for Personal Enrichment
With the understanding that wellness is more than fitness and nutrition, consumers are choosing trips that either focuses solely on personal enrichment or as a part of their travel plans.  In search of fulfillment and meaning, many consumers are viewing vacations, weekend getaways and retreats as a catalyst for personal change.

7. Slow Travel
Have you ever felt pressured to run through your vacation checking off sites to see and things to do? Slow travel advocates changing the pace in order to sip, savor and revel in the moment, which makes for a more relaxing and stress-free vacation.

8. Living & Giving

Driven by personal growth and discovery, affluent travelers value experiences connecting them to charitable causes and local communities. Volunteering on vacation has become increasingly popular and research shows altruism can improve wellbeing.

9. Healthy Travel

There are a large segment of travelers who are not wellness zealots but are committed to maintaining their healthy lifestyle on the road. Air transit and hotels are investing resources to attract these guests that are both business and leisure travelers (refer to previous article on Wellness Hotels).

10. Spas Leading Wellness

The spa industry is staking a claim on wellness tourism and on wellness in general. Eager to shake the image of pampering for the affluent, spas are repacking and rebranding as wellness providers to attract a larger market.

 

Source: Wellness Tourism Worldwide