Specialist tour operator Health and Fitness forecasts the top wellness holiday trends for 2016. Trending holidays include: Fitness DNA, leisure and healthy sabbaticals, Oxygen therapy and fitness, Active meditation, Fertility wellness, natural beauty.
Specialist tour operator Health and Fitness forecasts the top wellness trends for 2016 – from fitness DNA testing to oxygen therapy and healthy foodie holidays.
Fitness DNA
Taking personalised fitness training to a whole new level, the emerging science of DNA fitness testing reveals an insight into genetic makeup and the appropriate training response for the body. Through pre-arrival DNA analysis, fitness holiday programmes can then be tailored to physical ability and needs. Determining factors, such as whether someone is highly prone to injury, then helps decide as to whether it is better to push your body with an intense boot camp workout or take things easier with low impact activities such as yoga and walking.
Top 3 destinations: The BodyHoliday (St Lucia), Epic Sana (Portugal), 38 Degrees North (Ibiza)
Bleisure and healthy sabbaticals for workplace wellness
More businesses are supporting employees to boost their workplace wellness with healthy sabbaticals and bleisure trips. Resulting in a more productive and loyal team, the rise of bleisure travel (mixing business with leisure) allows a better work-life balance as employees make the most of wellness retreats offering business facilities. For those looking to completely disconnect on a healthy sabbatical, the rise of wellness retreats offering tailored programmes of longer durations allows the time to re-set and learn a healthier lifestyle.
Top 3 destinations: Ultimate Luxury Around The World Wellness Trip (Worldwide), Lefay (Italy), Kamalaya (Thailand)
Oxygen therapy and fitness training
With the increasing effects of pollution and allergies leaving many short of breath, more wellness spas are calling us to breath health in through the art of hypoxic training. Using supplemental oxygen to encourage the natural oxygenation process, improve the efficiency with which your respiratory system can supply oxygen, to lessen the effects of exhaustion, lack of focus and vitality caused by a lack of cellular oxygenation. Oxygenated fitness training is also on the rise, with oxygen-boosted workouts allowing the body to perform to its peak in a constant aerobic state.
Top 3 destinations: La Clairire (France), Chiva Som (Thailand), SHA Wellness Clinic (Spain)
Active meditation
Increasingly recognised as an effective way to reduce stress, increase self-awareness and enhance emotional intelligence, mindfulness in a continually hot topic in the wellness industry. Advocating the practice of a meditative state in everyday life, a rise in mindfulness workshops is encouraging a lifestyle of mindful walking, working and eating. Allowing people to practice the self-awareness of meditation whilst on the move, this healthy lifestyle exercise helps even the busiest of minds experience the inner peace of focusing purely on the present.
Top 3 destinations: Shreyas (India), Longevity (Portugal), SwaSwara (India)
Fertility wellness
More couples are turning to wellness retreats to banish stress and increase their chances of conceiving naturally. Through personalised wellness programmes incorporating healthy nutrition, healing spa therapies and mindfulness practices, such as yoga and meditation, couples are encouraged to release stress.
Top 3 destinations: SHA Wellness Clinic (Spain), The Chateau (Malaysia), Ti Sana (Italy)
Healthy solo travel, not just for singles
The rise in solo friendly holidays has continued to grow amongst single travellers, even those in relationships are looking to travel solo for the opportunity to focus on their individual wellness goals, whether on a yoga retreat or fitness boot camp
Top 3 destinations: The BodyHoliday (St Lucia), Absolute Sanctuary (Thailand), 38 Degrees North (Ibiza)
Natural beauty
As the world continues its enthusiasm to go green, more luxury spas are also turning back to nature, with a resurgence in naturally sourced and produced ingredients, free from artificial chemicals. Often sourced from local organic produce, the rise of the natural beauty treatment is heightened by the experience of spa treatments in the outdoors, using natural products in their natural surroundings. Following this trend is a demand for less-invasive, non-surgical cosmetic treatments, which are kinder on our bodies.
Top 3 destinations: Paradis Plage (Morocco), Lefay (Italy), Karkloof Safari Spa (South Africa)
Back to nature fitness
A growing group of fitness professionals are calling us out of the gym and back to nature, to discover our bodies’ natural potential with functional training in the great outdoors, which prompts us to adapt our movements to our immediate environment. Making the most of their stunning natural surroundings, more fitness holidays are offering jungle gym circuit training, beach boot camp workouts and guided coastal swimming. For those looking to push their limits, a rise in fitness holidays offering triathlons and even quadrathlons allows outdoor fitness fans to cover a variety of terrains, with beach running, jungle biking, ocean kayaking and abseiling.
Top 3 destinations: Wildfitness Zanzibar (Tanzania), The BodyHoliday (St Lucia), Red Mountain Resort (Utah)
Healthy foodie holidays
Healthy foodie holidays are in, with more wellness retreats offering healthy cooking classes and seasonal farm-to-table cuisine harvested from their on-site organic farm or garden. With a range of healthy diet and nutrition options at retreats around the world, healthy foodies can choose tailor-made wellness meal plans, including alkaline, Ayurvedic, Macrobiotic or raw food diets.
Top 3 destinations: Sianji Well-Being Resort (Turkey), Ananda in the Himalayas (India), Ti Sana (Italy)
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