The Global Wellness Institute (GWI) just published the Global Wellness Economy Monitor 2024. GWI defines wellness as: the active pursuit of activities, choices, and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health. Green Lodging News has frequently reported on the impact of wellness on the global economy in the past. The global wellness economy has grown rapidly in the aftermath of the pandemic and reached a new peak of $6.3 trillion in 2023 (representing 6.03 percent of global GDP). The wellness economy is expected to reach nearly $6.8 trillion in 2024, and march toward nearly $9.0 trillion in 2028. With its rapid growth in recent years, the global wellness economy is now larger in its market size than many other major industries, including IT, sports, and pharmaceuticals.
GWI breaks the wellness economy down into 11 sectors. Wellness tourism is one of those sectors. After peaking at $696.6 billion in 2019, wellness tourism expenditures plummeted to $343.0 billion in 2020, due to the pandemic travel bans and border closures around the world. Wellness tourism fared slightly better than overall tourism during the pandemic, with wellness trips and expenditures falling by less in 2020 and recovering at a faster rate in 2021-2022 as compared to overall tourism. Along with the relaxing of pandemic-related travel restrictions and the recovery of the overall tourism market, wellness tourism has grown rapidly over a three-year period, reaching a new peak of $830.2 billion in 2023. That number is expected to grow by more than 10 percent annually from 2023 to 2028.
Wellness tourism remains the fourth largest sector in the wellness economy, accounting for 13.1 percent of all global wellness spending in 2023. Wellness trips accounted for 7.8 percent of all tourism trips but represented 17.9 percent of all tourism expenditures in 2023. This is because wellness travelers tend to spend much more per trip than the average traveler. In 2023, international wellness tourists on average spent $1,668 per trip, which is 36 percent more than the typical international tourist. The spending premium for domestic wellness tourists is even higher, at 163 percent more than the typical domestic tourist (or $673 per trip). This is because wellness travelers are typically more affluent, educated, and well-traveled.
A New Leader in the Number of Wellness Trips
North America continues to lead the world in total wellness tourism expenditures, because the average spending per trip in North America is significantly higher than in other regions. In 2023, Asia-Pacific surpassed Europe to become the region with the largest number of wellness trips. Middle East-North Africa has been the world’s fastest-growing region for wellness tourism trips and expenditures from 2019-2023 (mirroring its rapid growth rate for all tourism). Wellness trips grew by 8.1 percent annually and wellness tourism expenditures grew by 11.6 percent annually during this period.
Wellness tourism is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The United States alone accounted for 20 percent of all trips and 36 percent of all expenditures in 2023. This is because, as a very large country, the United States has a very large domestic wellness travel market in addition to its inbound visitors.
The top five destination markets for wellness tourism in 2023: the United States, followed by Germany, China, France and Japan.
Secondary Wellness Travel
Most people think of wellness tourism as primary wellness travel—where the trip or destination choice is motivated by wellness, and where travelers may visit destination spas, health resorts, hot spring resorts, yoga retreats, and other immersive wellness experiences. In reality, the bulk of wellness tourism is secondary wellness travel—where travelers seek out wellness experiences or healthy options while taking any type of trip (for leisure or business). Secondary wellness tourism accounted for 83 percent of wellness tourism trips and expenditures in 2023.
In GWI’s analysis of wellness tourism, it includes those trips for which the motivation and interests are primarily wellness and prevention, and not medical or treatment oriented.
Interested in learning more about the global wellness economy? Click here to access a download of the Global Wellness Economy Monitor 2024.
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