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The wellness takeover

Global Wellness Summit has unveiled 2021 Wellness Trends Report which anticipates wellness becoming more inclusive, more soulful and more evidence-based - rewriting several markets - not just travel

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Jumeirah At Saadiyat Island Resort celebrated the inaugural Abu Dhabi Beauty Week last month, with a range of sessions incorporating beauty, wellness and detox

A few themes emerge in Global Wellness Summit 2021 Wellness Trends Report: wellness is poised to take a bigger seat at the healthcare table; it will become more inclusive and affordable, more evidence-based, tackle tougher human pain-points, and be more soulful. And it will rewrite vast markets: from the entertainment industries to travel to architecture.

This will be the ‘Year of the Travel Reset’, says the report. The pandemic acted as a near-complete brake on travel in 2020, giving suppliers and consumers time to think about how to reboot travel for the better.

In 2021, all travel could become wellness travel, as manic getaways are replaced by slower, closer, more mindful experiences and with tentative travellers demanding that health and safety be front-and-centre. More travel will become regenerative – leaving a place better off than you found it, overtourism will be challenged, undertourism corrected and people will crave nature immersion and purpose-driven experiences.

 

In 2021, all travel could become wellness travel, as manic getaways are replaced by slower, closer, more mindful experiences and with tentative travellers demanding that health and safety be front-and-centre

 

 

The events industry could see some radical resetting with wellness – you may never sit on a banquet chair again, says the report. 

In March 2020, the pandemic brought in-person events to an abrupt halt. But there is a silver lining: a new trend that will forever change meetings was born, with wellness at the core. The future is more hybrid events (an in-person and virtual mix), but it’s also about rethinking (from every angle) how any event can be healthier and safer while still engaging, from embedding new technologies – whether air purification or Far-UVC lighting – that mitigates infection risk to turning banquet seating into personal wellness stations and creating equally social and distanced dance parties. In 2021 and beyond, creativity is driving connection and how we gather will take on new meaning, says the report.

Three hundred years after the first Medical Renaissance (1400–1700), we’re entering a new one. One where two complementary yet often competing entities, healthcare and wellness, will converge. Wellness will increasingly lean into science, while healthcare will borrow from the wellness playbook, transforming a once sterile, strictly curative industry into a more holistic, lifestyle-oriented, and even pleasurable one. In this new era, hospitals will take inspiration from five-star resorts, yoga studios might measure improved telomere length, and prescriptions will be coupled with hyper-personalised guides to optimal health.

With Hollywood and the entertainment industries jump into wellness, wellness will become a much bigger, more meaningful programming focus in the TV and music industries. Music created for stress, sleep, focus, a better workout, or just trippy bliss will keep exploding – from a wave of wellness music apps to generative music technology, taking sound-as-precision-medicine to radical places.

More wellness experiences at Big Media platforms is a story of unprecedented reach and affordability.

While people were bombarded with ‘immune-boosting’ supplements, foods and therapies in 2020, the future is evidence-backed approaches that lead to immuno-stabilization, immuno-balance. In 2021, metabolic health, a healthy microbiome, and personalised nutrition become far more crucial and we’ll see experimentation with ‘positive stress’ experiences and intermittent fasting for immune resilience, said the report.  

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