The global wellness industry grew 12.8 percent in the last two years, from a $3.7 trillion market in 2015 to $4.2 trillion in 2017, according to an in-depth research report, the 2018 Global Wellness Economy Monitor, released today by the nonprofit Global Wellness Institute (GWI). This all-new data on the 10 markets that comprise the global wellness economy provides fresh evidence that wellness remains one of the world’s biggest and fast-growing industries, the GWI said.
Economic context:
- From 2015-2017, the wellness economy grew 6.4 percent annually, nearly twice as fast as global economic growth (3.6%).
- Wellness expenditures ($4.2 trillion) are now more than half as large as total global health expenditures ($7.3 trillion).
- The wellness industry now represents 5.3 percent of global economic output.
The report was released at the 12th annual Global Wellness Summit being held at Technogym Village in Cesena, Italy, which has attracted over 630 industry leaders from 50 nations.
Among the 10 wellness markets analyzed, revenue growth leaders from 2015-2017 (per annum) were: 1) the spa industry (9.8%), 2) wellness tourism (6.5%) and 3) wellness real estate (6.4%). For the complementary medicine market, the definition changed since 2015 (adding traditional medicine sectors like Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine), so a formal percentage growth rate can’t be provided.
Wellness Market Growth
2015 Revenues - 2017 Revenues – Annual Growth Rate
- Beauty, Personal Care & Anti-Aging: $999 billion - $1.08 trillion – 4.1 percent
- Healthy Eating, Nutrition & Weight Loss: $648 billion - $702 billion – 4.1 percent
- Wellness Tourism: $563 billion - $639 billion – 6.5 percent
- Fitness & Mind-Body: $542 billion - $595 billion – 4.8 percent
- Preventive & Personalized Health & Public Health: $534 billion - $575 billion – 3.7 percent
- Complementary & Traditional Medicine: $199 billion - $360 billion – NA
- Wellness Real Estate: $119 billion - $134 billion – 6.4 percent
- Spa Economy: $98.6 billion - $119 billion – 9.8 percent
- (Spa Facilities: $78 billion - $94 billion – 9.9 percent
- Thermal/Mineral Springs: $51 billion - $56 billion – 4.9 percent
- Workplace Wellness: $43 billion - $47.5 billion – 4.8 percent
“Once upon a time, our contact with wellness was occasional: we went to the gym or got a massage. But this is changing fast: a wellness mindset is starting to permeate the global consumer consciousness, affecting people’s daily decision-making – whether food purchases, a focus on mental wellness and reducing stress, incorporating movement into daily life, environmental consciousness, or their yearning for connection and happiness,” said Katherine Johnston, senior research fellow, GWI, in a written statement. “Wellness for more people is evolving from rarely to daily, from episodic to essential, from a luxury to a dominant lifestyle value. And that profound shift is driving powerful growth.”
Spotlight on 5 Markets (Original GWI Data)
Wellness Real Estate: Real estate that incorporates intentional wellness elements into its design, materials and building, and its amenities and programming, is growing fast as more people want to bring more health into the places where they spend the majority of their time. For comparison, the $134 billion wellness real estate market is now about 1.5 percent of the total annual global construction market and about half the size of the global green building industry. There are now more than 740 wellness real estate and community developments built or in development across 34 countries – a number that grows weekly.
Workplace Wellness: Valued at $47.5 billion, the workplace wellness market remains very small in comparison to the massive economic burden and productivity losses (10-15% of global economic output) associated with an unwell and disengaged workforce. Only 9.8 percent of world employees are covered by a workplace wellness program (321 million people), and programs are heavily concentrated in high-income countries in North America, Western Europe and Asia.
Wellness Tourism: The $639 billion wellness travel market’s annual growth rate of 6.5 percent from 2015-2017 is more than double the growth rate for tourism overall (3.2%). World travelers made 830 million wellness trips in 2017, 139 million more than in 2015 – and these trips now represent 17 percent of total tourism expenditures. Wellness tourism growth is very much a tale of developing markets, with Asia-Pacific, Latin America-Caribbean, Middle East-North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa all clocking robust gains, and accounting for 57 percent of the increase in wellness trips since 2015. Over the past five years, Asia is the #1 gainer in both wellness tourism trips and revenues (trips grew a whopping 33% in two years, to 258 million annually). China and India rank #1 and #2 for growth worldwide, adding over 12 million and 17 million wellness trips respectively from 2015-2017.
Spa Industry: The spa economy, which includes spa facility revenues (now $93.6 billion yearly), and also education, consulting, associations, media and event sectors that enable spa businesses (now $25.2 billion), has grown to a $118.8 billion market. Spa locations jumped from 121,595 in 2015 to over 149,000 in 2017, employing nearly 2.6 million workers. The 9.9 percent annual revenue growth for spas is much higher than the pace from 2013-2015 (2.3%). From 2015-2017, the hotel/resort spa category added the largest number of spas and revenue, and has now surpassed day/salon spas as the industry’s revenue leader.
Thermal & Mineral Springs: The thermal/mineral springs market continues to clock strong growth as more people turn to water for stress relief, healing and community. The market grew from $51 billion in 2015 to $56.2 billion in 2017, while facilities jumped from 27,507 (in 109 countries) to 34,057 (in 127 countries) – employing 1.8 million workers. The market is intensely concentrated in Asia-Pacific and Europe, which account for 95 percent of revenues.
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