Tallied as a $563 billion market in 2015, wellness tourism has blossomed into a $639 billion market as of 2017. According to recently outlined findings by the Global Wellness Institute’s (GWI) Global Wellness Tourism Economy report, the 6.5 percent annual increase is more than double the growth of overall tourism increases since 2015, and wellness tourism is slated to grow even faster—up to 7.5-percent annually—to reach $919 billion by 2022.
“Wellness tourism burst into the consumer consciousness just a very few years ago, and it’s hard to grasp the speed of its growth and evolution,” says GWI senior researchers Katherine Johnston and Ophelia Yeung. “Wellness, hospitality, and travel are now converging in unprecedented ways, from the ‘healthy hotel’ concept going utterly mainstream to airports, airlines, and cruises injecting so much wellness programming, to the profusion of ever-more-creative wellness destinations, retreats, and tours. The wellness concept is transforming almost every aspect of the travel industry—and wellness tourism will only grow faster in years ahead, as it lies at the powerful intersection of two massive, booming industries: the $2.6 trillion tourism industry and the $4.2 trillion wellness market.”
International travelers made 830 million trips in 2017 alone, which represents 17 percent of all tourism revenues. China and India are ranked in first and second place, respectively, for growth with 22 million and 17 million wellness trips between 2015 and 2017. Developing markets such as Asia Pacific, Latin America-Caribbean, Middle East-North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa lead the growth story, now accounting for 57 percent of the increase in trips since 2015. The top five nations for wellness tourism—the U.S., Germany, China, France, and Japan—collectively represent 59 percent of the global market, with the U.S. alone driving more than one-third of the world revenues. More and more countries are assessing their wellness assets as a result of increased interest. In the U.S., more than one-third of the states promote some sort of wellness tourism on their official state tourism websites.
Wellness travelers are also spending an average of $1,528 per trip—53 percent more than the typical international tourist. Domestic wellness tourists tend to spend an average of $609 per trip, which is 175 percent more than the average domestic traveler.
