wellness

When one thinks spa vacation, a few select destinations immediately come to mind: Italy, Thailand, Turks and Caicos… sound familiar? But savvy spa-goers are pushing back against the “been there, done that” travel mentality and demanding more exotic destinations and indigenous experiences to stamp on their spa passports, thereby spawning a significant new industry trend: […]

A core part of a spa’s DNA is personal connection and helping people cope with pain and stress. And a growing percentage of spas around the world offer services specifically created for people suffering from serious illnesses like cancer, and numerous spas and wellness businesses provide free services and raise money to support health-related causes. […]

Refreshing water with slices of citrus and white fluffy robes – these are the simple amenities spa visitors have come to expect and delight in. But there is another ambient detail that gets overlooked since it usually hits us on a more unconscious level: the calming orange blossom and lavender scents that often waft through […]

Could it be that we’re finally leaving the era of faux beauty? Spas have traditionally embraced and encouraged the value of inner health leading to that outer glow. But over the last few decades, beauty seekers have pulled, poked, painted and prodded, using an ever-widening wide range of hair and beauty treatments and products to […]

Fitness, like fashion, is often about what’s new, what’s different, what’s in and what’s out, with a hot new exercise fad seemingly being trumpeted every day. In 2013 we looked at the exploding “label-conscious fitness” culture, which favors programs attached to the insider elite and/or a well-known brand. (Think Zumba®, The Biggest Loser® or Madonna’s […]

Something’s in the air… something’s floating out there. People have a deepening psychological and physical desire to escape from gravity’s relentless pull, and a distinct “suspending gravity” or “floating” trend is rising up. We’re seeing more weightless, stress – and mind-melting flotation tanks, chambers and pools at spas. On the fitness front: a global craze […]

For some, even connecting the words “wired and wellness” is counterintuitive, especially as being tethered to cell phones, computers and tablets every waking minute of our lives has created a backlash of its own. But, still, we have become a society that is crazy for data – and putting this data to work can truly […]

Last year we explored how, after a century of hotel experiences synonymous with bacchanalian excess, more properties were on a new health kick and branding and re-branding around wellness. But the most powerful trends, like “Healthy Hotels,” are more than passing news and become megatrends, because they fulfill profound human needs. In 2014, look for […]

The Spafinder Trends Report is an in-depth forecast of the most significant global trends that will impact the Spa industry and consumers in the year ahead. Developed by a team of research analysts, editors and industry experts, the forecast is based on ongoing surveys of the spa, wellness and beauty providers in the Spafinder Network, […]

Use these three tips for mindful self care to figure out what you need to feel fulfilled.

How can you maximize your enjoyment without jeopardizing your health when eating out?

This month’s Good Karma is all about taking Heart Month to heart!

Enjoy this trip down memory lane to when our very own Susie Ellis’ spa career had just begun.

Your sodium intake is probably much higher than you think—use these tips to reduce it.

A year earlier we had decided on the theme “A Defining Moment” sensing that having His Holiness the Dalai Lama with us might provide the right setting for such a happening.

Each year before issuing the New Year’s top 10, we review last year’s trends and assign ourselves a grade using the familiar A = Excellent to F = Failure grading system.

2013 is coming to a close and I have a few things on my  mind.  I had to neglect writing my blog for a while because of the 2013 Global Spa and Wellness Summit (GSWS) and a fair amount of travel – India, Hong Kong, Morocco – all in a couple of months.  (And yes […]

The world has a nasty jobs problem: an unemployment backlog of 210 million people worldwide and 30 million jobs lost since the recent recession.¹ Economists argue that 400 million new jobs will need to be created over the next decade² to avoid this crisis from worsening. The cry for “jobs, jobs, jobs” dominates political discussions, […]

When Spafinder Wellness first identified the upsurge in men hitting spas (Trend Reports 2001, 2005) the focus was on new “macho” spas, where post-golf rubdowns and old-fashioned shaves took place in clubby, brandy-snifting-and-sports-watching environments…aggressively assuaging all fears that “what was going on” had anything to do with feminized beauty. If the spa-man headlines for the […]

“Name-brand” fitness has been around for decades, but fitness programs, often branded by celebrities and fitness gurus, have exploded (and receded) as media-driven tastes and fashion changed over the years. But today being fit is the new luxury, and the manic mechanisms of chasing the new, the “in”, and what the insider elite is doing, […]