Wellness Tourism Worldwide (WTW) has issued the main findings from Phase 2 of the “4WR: Wellness for Whom, Where and What?” project. The full report will be available for purchase soon. The objective of this research is to identify the main global and regional trends experts may envision in health-motivated travel by 2020.
Wellness Tourism Worldwide (WTW) has issued the main findings from Phase 2 of the “4WR: Wellness for Whom, Where and What?” project. The full report will be available for purchase soon.
The objective of this research is to identify the main global and regional trends experts may envision in health-motivated travel by 2020. The findings are based on data collected from 140 individuals and organizations in over 50 countries-connected with wellness, tourism, spas and healthcare.
The report argues that in the future, the supply of wellness services will be quite different by 2020 than it is now. Lifestyle approaches such as yoga will dominate the supply of wellness services in North America and Northern Europe.
Wellness hotels and resorts are forecast to become the most popular wellness destinations in Africa, South America, Central America, Australia and New Zealand. In Central and Eastern Europe therapeutic services and treatment based on natural assets such as thermal spas will become the most important.
The downside is that as beauty treatment, day spas, massage and saunas become more widespread globally there may be less need for people to travel overseas.
The report looks at the possible changing popularity of saunas, psychological therapies, massage, beauty treatment, alternative therapies, natural products, ecospas, day spas, adventure spas, wellness and spa cruises, hot life retreats, mehotels, spa living environments, budget spas myspas, eco-fit resorts, dreamscapes, and well-working environments. Some of these may be unfamiliar and there are detailed explanations in the flyer.
Wellness tourism preferences are analysed for certain sectors- leisure and recreational spas, therapeutic services, medical services, wellness hotels/spa resorts, wellness/lifestyle services, holistic services, spiritual services, adventure spas, eco spas, and wellness/spa cruises.
Wellness tourism is one of the fastest growing forms of international and domestic tourism and is expected to continue for at least the next five years and probably for the next ten years. The globalization of standard and uniform products could pose a major risk.
The report provides predictions of –
• Which wellness tourism products and services will become popular?
• How the popularity will differ by continent.
• Which wellness tourism products and services will decline?
• How the decline will differ by continent.
• Which lesser known products present an opportunity for market growth.
• Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
• What are the market sectors by age and gender?
• How it is and will it be funded.
A note of caution on the results is that with a smallish sample size of 140 respondents spread over 50 countries, the statistical accuracy is not robust. And with any report looking a decade into the future, the views will be strongly influenced by the current business of respondents. And as with any future predictions, a host of unknown elements can rapidly make nonsense of what seemed sensible at the time; two years ago could anyone have predicted the Arab Spring, earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan, the European ash clouds closing airports, or Qatar being awarded the World Cup?
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