Everywhere from dazzling cities to remote exotic destinations, luxury travel is experiencing a healthy boom. Rising wellness aspirations are profoundly transforming luxury and redefining affluent customer expectations.
Wellness tourism is now the fastest growing segment in the travel industry, driven by travelers desires for a wellness lifestyle. Wellness tourism has grown at a healthy rate. From a high of $720 billion in 2019, and a 2020 fall to $436 billion, predictions for 2022 are as high as $817 billion and over $1 trillion by 2025. Wellness travel has traditionally been associated with luxury spa holidays. But as self-care has evolved into a daily goal, wellness travel is now taking many different forms and incorporating things like digital detox, healthier food options fitness concierge, sleep enhancement and more.
Wellness tourism equates to high-yield tourism. Luxury wellness travelers are now willing to pay a premium for healthier hotel stays and wellness products and services while traveling. As affluent travelers take wellness seriously, luxury hotels follow suit. The concept of wellness is taking center stage at some of the world’s most exclusive hotels.
A close cousin to wellness tourism is medical tourism. Medical tourism is successful for millions of people each year and it’s on the rise because of specialist-driven procedures, high quality facilities and the option to travel before or after a medical procedure.
Some foreign hospitals offer spa-like luxury, providing medical tourism as the opportunity to be pampered during their stay for a fraction of the cost they might pay at home. Some facilities offer hospital rooms that are more like a hotel suite. Others offer one-to-one private nursing care, which is far more generous and attentive than staffing ratios at most hospitals.
Medical tourists who seek that added layer of privacy can find it abroad. Many can return home from their “vacation” without anyone knowing they had a procedure at all.
KS Global Development along with its subsidiary, Stirling One, have been at the forefront of wellness and medical tourism for years. They have partnered with global, specialized doctors at select properties as a wellness retreat with clinically trained staff for recovery after a procedure. Soon we will be opening 2 World Class Wellness Retreats within our Caribbean properties, inclusive of a wellness clinic, staffed wellness villas and wellness medical recovery and rejuvenation packages. We hope to elevate the industry’s standard in luxury wellness retreats with a stand-alone brand concept on the horizon”, states Stirling One founder and KS Global Developer Kassie Smith.
Affluent travelers are increasingly looking at hotels and luxury travel brands that infuse wellbeing into the very essence of their experiences and elevate them to be at their personal best.