Wellness tourism has bloomed into a truly beautiful experience that helps individuals connect their physical being to their mind and spirit. However, as the concept of wellness has continued to evolve, so has the idea of wellness travel. In their 2018 wellness trends, the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) mentioned how wellness travel is going to become increasingly interconnected and fluid.
"Transformative travel" is going to have a major impact on how spas can connect their traveling clients to well-being. In their report on transformative travel, the GWI finds the current problem with traveling wellness is that the treatments and experiences are disconnected when looking at the traveling experience as a whole.
Taking Clients on A Journey
Spas and wellness resorts have started to partake in the increasingly popular concept of casting hero or heroine story-based wellness quests, where the client experiences an emotional and sensory voyage while staying at the resort. The opening of the Six Senses Bhutan will showcase the first multi-property and story-based wellness resort.
Breaking beyond the walls of the resort to experience the outdoors is one of the great ways that wellness traveling is transforming. From seaside spa treatments to trekking through the safari, spas are beginning to take the idea of journeying at the spa more seriously and more creatively. This kind of journeying can supply a feeling of living, eating and going to the spa like a local of wherever you have traveled to.
Going Beyond an Itinerary
With the idea of creating a connected and whole wellness experience, the GWI believes that more spas will, and should, inject more theater and fantasy into wellness experiences. This allows clients to go through a self-reflection journey filled with different emotions, instead of simply being handed an itinerary.
Transforming your wellness resort and spa into more of an active adventure is what makes the difference when it comes to wellness traveling. Thus, begin to form your treatments, experiences and fitness adventures around more storytelling, i.e. music, art and literature. The GWI predicts that the future holds a lot for transformative wellness travel and that there will be an expansion into turning the spa experience into a nature-roaming journey.
