Health, Wellness and Medical Travel
Published Tuesday, November 19th 2013
Categories
As the numbers indicate, wellness tourism comprises a $439 billion global market, or 14% of international and domestic tourism expenditures, so it is not a startup.
And wellness travel is expected to grow by more than 9% annually through 2017.
The U.S. is, by far, the largest wellness tourism market today, generating $167.1 billion in combined international and domestic expenditures annually.
The statistics are drawn from the Global Wellness Tourism Economy Report, a study commissioned by the Global Spa & Wellness Summit, an education and research organization, to analyze the global and domestic impact of wellness tourism.
Taking wellness on the road
Among its findings: Travelers who have adopted wellness strategies in their everyday lives at home want to stay healthy while on the road. As a result, more consumers are demanding that aspects of wellness be incorporated in leisure and business trips.
“Many nations will make wellness mandatory in the future,” said Susie Ellis, chair and CEO of GSWS and president of SpaFinder Wellness. “There has been a renaissance in the use of natural hot springs in Japan, China, Eastern Europe and Turkey.”
What is wellness?
The concept of wellness entered the mainstream in the 1970s; today it is applied to anything that makes one feel good or healthy. The World Health Organization’s broadest definition of “health” is “a state of complete physical, mental and social being.”
“This industry is at the intersection of wellness and technology,” Ellis said.
Vacations are changing
Ophelia Yeung, the study’s author and co-director of SRI’s Center for Science, Technology & Economic Development, said the research results reflect a major shift away from vacations associated with excess – too much eating and drinking and too little sleep – to vacations focused on health and wellness.
“People are now choosing destinations that help them stay or get healthy while traveling,” Yeung said.
There are two types of wellness seekers, Yeung said ¬– those for whom a trip is “purely about wellness” and those “who seek wellness while traveling.”
The most straightforward approach is for agents to take the initiative and suggest to clients that they add a wellness component to their vacation.
I will add another blog item shortly, specifically on Medical Tourism which looks at both elective and mandatory non emergency surgery relative to where and how you want to have your procedure accomplished and recuperate.
And wellness travel is expected to grow by more than 9% annually through 2017.
The U.S. is, by far, the largest wellness tourism market today, generating $167.1 billion in combined international and domestic expenditures annually.
The statistics are drawn from the Global Wellness Tourism Economy Report, a study commissioned by the Global Spa & Wellness Summit, an education and research organization, to analyze the global and domestic impact of wellness tourism.
Taking wellness on the road
Among its findings: Travelers who have adopted wellness strategies in their everyday lives at home want to stay healthy while on the road. As a result, more consumers are demanding that aspects of wellness be incorporated in leisure and business trips.
“Many nations will make wellness mandatory in the future,” said Susie Ellis, chair and CEO of GSWS and president of SpaFinder Wellness. “There has been a renaissance in the use of natural hot springs in Japan, China, Eastern Europe and Turkey.”
What is wellness?
The concept of wellness entered the mainstream in the 1970s; today it is applied to anything that makes one feel good or healthy. The World Health Organization’s broadest definition of “health” is “a state of complete physical, mental and social being.”
“This industry is at the intersection of wellness and technology,” Ellis said.
Vacations are changing
Ophelia Yeung, the study’s author and co-director of SRI’s Center for Science, Technology & Economic Development, said the research results reflect a major shift away from vacations associated with excess – too much eating and drinking and too little sleep – to vacations focused on health and wellness.
“People are now choosing destinations that help them stay or get healthy while traveling,” Yeung said.
There are two types of wellness seekers, Yeung said ¬– those for whom a trip is “purely about wellness” and those “who seek wellness while traveling.”
The most straightforward approach is for agents to take the initiative and suggest to clients that they add a wellness component to their vacation.
I will add another blog item shortly, specifically on Medical Tourism which looks at both elective and mandatory non emergency surgery relative to where and how you want to have your procedure accomplished and recuperate.
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