wellness-agenda.org

While many looks and hopes are going to South Africa, let’s catch ourselves the ball and talk about the new study released by STR International (SRI) at Global Spa Summit in Istanbul. Don Ardell has been kind enough to place a long article on our blog, which I really appreciated. This makes it easier for me: I just have to catch the ball to start…!

Don, you are perfectly right: the fact that the spa industry has been encouraged and even directed to promote wellness is a good thing. The astonishing thing is that this change of mind has happened within a year or two. We here in Europe are used in using the term “Wellness”, apart from the fact that it is abused a lot. Therefore, it has been interesting to hear the increased usage of the word “Wellness” in English language when attending Global Spa Summit last year. The most important thing is, that the STR study “Spas and the Global Wellness Market” is not only based on an industry research. Two surveys were distributed to spa stakeholders as well as consumers around the world. Regarding the industry survey, with a few exceptions, there was little evident variation across responses from different regions or from different types of business. The consumer survey is not large enough to provide a representative sample of consumers and has a high focus on the US market (63%), followed by Europe (20%) and Asia-Pacific (15%). Both groups were asked to define wellness as an open ended question, using their own words. Top 1 amongst 10 terms frequently associated with “wellness” in both groups: “Quality of life”.

People want to live healthier lifestyles, but as Don is saying, they need help to understand not so much how to do it (the facts of exercise and nutrition and the rest) but rather how to sustain good intentions to do so. The solution could be the creation of “Wellness Concierge Service”, as Philippe Bourguignon pointed out at GSS as one of the keynote speakers. The men who had been responsible for the successful turnaround of Club Med and rescued Euro Disney, is CEO of “Revolution Places” Today, he is busy with developing new touristic concepts, which will help to implement healthy lifestyle, like the Miraval resort in Tucson, Arizona.

The Global Spa Summit officials have done a great job to encourage STR International to do this study (and to find Murad Inclusive Health as sponsor to pay for it). The SRI report is a not only a broad endorsement for wellness – it can be a “kick-off” for the whole industry. But even with the personal help of pioneers like Don Ardell, there will be never a worldwide granted definition of “Wellness” just because of one reason: there is too much money involved in this market. STR is mentioning 2 Billion US $! Therefore, everybody will grap its piece and make it suitable for his individual profit and share of the market.

Let’s meet at the Top Wellness Event “Deutscher Wellness Gipfel”   in August in Düsseldorf, where people from different parts of the industry will meet with philosophers, journalists and a lot of other interesting people. We will have a lot to discuss about how we can catch the ball and face the challenge to help spa leaders, spa operators and consumers as well understand “that wellness can be all that SRI says it is – and a great deal more.”

This entry was posted on Mittwoch, Juni 16th, 2010 at 15:45 and is filed under Allgemein. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.