5 Wellness Travel Trends to Watch In the Second Half of 2017
May 9, 2017
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Health and well-being are at the center of most conversations among people today, as individuals are increasingly willing to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Wellness has been incorporated into various aspects of people’s lives, including travel. As such, wellness travel - where people travel to improve their health and wellbeing - is becoming a popular way of traveling. In fact, it’s becoming the ‘it’ way to travel today.
According to a recent research from the Global Wellness Institute, wellness travel is a $489 billion global market and is predicted to grow up to $679 billion by the end of 2017. So what kind of wellness travel trends should we expect to see during the second half of this year? To find out, the team at BookYogaRetreats.com recently took a deeper look at past wellness trends and compared them to answers from their recent travel survey. Here are the 5 trends that the team predict will be big in the last six months of 2017:
You will travel to enrich yourself
More importantly, there is a shift in the general mindset of travelers as a whole. Where previously, travel was a means to arrive at a new destination for the purpose of visiting family and friends, or perhaps to have a great weekend out socializing or entertaining, now people travel to enrich themselves. When asked why they travel, 33% of our respondents say that they travel to learn or deepen a specific wellness activity, be it surfing, yoga, martial arts or even culinary. Other respondents say they travel to cultivate a new healthy habit and explore a new destination.
You will search for wellness amenities in your travels
Even if they are not looking specifically for wellness travel, travelers are now looking for travel destinations or properties that support wellness, one way or another. 35% of our respondents stressed that access to health related facilities including a juice bar or a yoga and pilates studio would impact their decisions when searching for travel packages. To accommodate this demand, hotels around the world are making their hotel more health-friendly, with some hotels offering amenities to guests to practice yoga from the comforts of their room.
You will opt for budget wellness
Though wellness may seem like a luxurious form of travel, travelers at the end of 2017 will still opt for budget options where possible. Searches for budget yoga retreats on BookYogaRetreats.com sits on the top two of most popular pages for the year. Budget searches also take the top spot for BookMartialArts.com and BookSurfCamps.com, showing an importance in the cost of the wellness program itself to travelers. To offset the cost of a wellness program, companies are also now offering various incentives to their employees who are looking to reset their health and well-being. A Canadian company ATB Financial allows its employees to trade benefit credits for vacation days and a “wellness” account that they can use on wellness-related items or activities.
You will most likely choose to go on a yoga retreat
When asked what vacation themes attract them the most, almost 40% of our respondents selected yoga retreats as their top option. This is followed by culinary holidays at 14%, singles holidays at 11%, and meditation retreats at almost 9%.
Culinary holidays are also seeing a shift with vegan culinary retreats becoming more popular, surpassing vegetarian retreats. On BookCulinaryVacations.com, the searches for vegan retreats have gained momentum in the past months and it is now the 6th most popular page found on the site, with vegetarian retreats at 8th place.
Martial arts as a form of wellness is also not lacking behind, with kung fu camps, which often include wellness related activities such as meditation, continuing to be the most popular training camps at BookMartialArts.com to date. This interest in wellness does not end in the West either. Hotels in Asia are now adding wellness elements to cater to the demands of their wealthy Asian patrons. A hotel in China has added tai chi and meditation classes to its services, where guests are welcomed to attend morning tai chi classes with a tai chi master.
You will be interested in surf
A top trend for 2017 is the continued growth of surfing and wellness. More individuals are now searching for the next great beach destination that marries both surf and yoga into one. Searches for yoga and surf retreats on BookSurfCamps.com remains within the top 10 highest searches on the website. On BookYogaRetreats.com, searches for yoga and surf retreats are also extremely popular, with it being the 7th most popular topic on the website. According to SpaFinder Wellness 365’s report, 36% of US women are surfers, causing a growth in surf schools and centers around the world to cater to the demand. The surfing industry is now a $130 billion dollar industry and this figure is set to go up in the next 5 years.
Planning your next wellness trip? Go to BookYogaRetreats.com and combine yoga with many different activities like surfing, running, skiing or many other options to enrich your wellness vacation!