Why You NEED To Get Into Wellness Travel — If You Haven’t Already!

Welcome to our 3-part series on wellness travel and its place in a post-covid world!

Here at Unhotel, our love for holidays that are just meant to relax and shed the stress of everyday life is unending. That said, we know enough people who prefer to stay on the grind even on vacation and we understand — if the rest of the world isn’t slowing down during your trip to Kerala, how can you?!

Well, maybe it just takes a shift of perspective to see why taking a break can actually make you MORE productive, almost immediately!

This first installment in the series is a little introduction to wellness tourism and its benefits, the second part acts as a mini planner so you can book yourself a trip for whatever your budget and the final leg is an exclusive interview with one of our favourite travellers — but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s jump in!

The numbers

Social media nowadays is plagued with the (mistaken) notion that working hard is always the key, regardless of context. Staying “on the grind” from hospital beds, your own wedding, in the midst of personal crises is seen as something to be lauded instead of the unhealthy, almost toxic mindset that it really is.

On the flipside, there seems to be a growing community of people who understand the importance of taking it slow every once in a while. According to a recent estimate, the world of wellness has netted in as much as $4.5 TRILLION as of 2018 and something as stressful as a global pandemic basically ensures that those numbers will continue to soar as we reach a post-covid world. The Global Wellness Institute predicts that over a BILLION wellness trips would have taken place by 2022 — no mean feat.

The numbers are even more impressive when put into context of the rest of the industry — “from 2015 to 2017 the wellness tourism market grew from $563bn to $639bn, or 6.5% annually — more than twice as fast as the growth of tourism overall” (source). So clearly, all the cucumber face masks have hit upon something that people find value in.

India, with our rich history of Ayurveda and yogic practices, is a top choice for global travellers who want to treat their minds and bodies. Maharashtra in particular went through a recent wellness travel boom, proving that you better act fast if you want to take full advantage of all that India has to offer wellness tourists!

The benefits

What you take away depends entirely on what YOU focus on.

There are workout trips solely to boost your physical wellbeing, yoga and meditation sojourns to calm your mind down, even hiking expeditions to give you a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Shifts in the beauty industry have given rise to an increasingly popular type of vacation that merits some thought on its own. “Weight loss vacays” are by no means a novel concept but seem to be gaining ground very rapidly as of the last decade or so. Similarly, medicinal tourism is also on the rise as one of the hottest divisions of this booming industry.

It really feels like there’s a trip for whatever you want to focus on, but it may well be that your greatest takeaway from these outings could have nothing to do with what you set out to find!

The best part

Many report that the sense of community and togetherness that’s fostered on these curated travels (some of which go on for a couple weeks or more) are the best part of the experience for them.

Meeting up with people from all over the world is always one of the biggest draws of any vacation, but finding people who have a similar mindset and outlook on life just acts as the icing on the cake.

French sociologist Emile Durkheim came up with a term for this way back in the early twentieth century — communal effervescence. Shared experience can deepen bonds and facilitate connections in no time, and that may well be the secret to why this industry looks like it could be valued at 1 trillion dollars in next to no time.

The pandemic has demonstrated the importance of social connectivity better than any thought experiment ever could. Wellness travel can help you inch your way back to a feeling of normalcy even as the rest of the world is struggling to deal with covid’s impact.

This is part one of a three part series on wellness travel. Watch this space for more coming soon!