‘Wellness’ has become the hospitality world’s favourite buzz word – and its vaguest. Menu copy promises it. Lobbies scent it. Decks pitch it. Yet guests can still tell when the experience doesn’t measure up. ‘Well-washing’ is real: the overclaiming cousin of greenwashing. And yet, despite all the fluff, genuine wellness in hospitality does drive performance.
Spas are just a sliver of the bigger wellness pie
The Global Wellness Institute values the global wellness economy at $6.3 trillion (2023) across eleven sectors; the spa slice is roughly $136-137 billion – about two per cent of the pie. In other words, if a hotel’s ‘wellness strategy’ begins and ends at the spa door, it’s playing in a very small corner of a very large field.
And that field is only getting bigger. Wellness tourism, which accounted for 13.1% of all wellness spending in 2023, is expected to grow at 10.2% CAGR to $1,351 billion by 2028.
This surge reflects a wider cultural shift. In recent years, health and resilience have moved from personal aspirations to daily priorities. Travellers are more attuned to sleep, stress and wellbeing than ever, and younger demographics in particular are choosing brands that align with those values. In other words, wellness is no longer a passing trend; it is part of how guests judge relevance.
Not every hotel should become a ‘Wellness Specialist’
It’s easy to look at wellness retreats, with their year-round occupancy and higher TrevPAR and want a piece of it, but the challenge is that not every hotel can – or should – become a wellness specialist. Most shouldn’t. But every brand does need a coherent wellness position that matches its personality – and with proof points that live beyond the spa.
Resorts have dwell time and captive audiences; urban hotels live on one or two night stays. That doesn’t make city wellness a lost cause; it just changes the brief. The question is whether you can improve sleep, movement and everyday choices in a way that sounds like your brand.
For urban hotels it’s about smart, simple touchpoints
Some hotels have shown it can be done. In New York, Equinox Hotel put sleep centre-stage with its new Sleep Lab — a collaboration with sleep scientist Dr Matthew Walker that uses circadian-aware settings, adaptive mattresses and simple rituals to help guests arrive rested rather than merely checked-in.
London offers a different lesson. 1 Hotel Mayfair doesn’t shout about wellness; instead, it builds it into ordinary moments: filtered water taps in every room, abundant plants and materials that feel good to touch. It’s health by design – and a reminder that credibility often lives in the quiet details rather than the bold claims.
At the scalable end, EVEN Hotels was ahead of the curve with in-room fitness kit and short, guided routines; Hilton’s Five Feet to Fitness took a similar tack, moving equipment and digital guidance right into selected guestrooms. Those choices are simple yet smart, meeting time-poor travellers where they actually are: between emails, pre-flight, and post-meeting.
Delving into diagnostics – but it’s not for all
Other city properties are taking it a step further. Clinique La Prairie’s Longevity Hubs – for example at The St. Regis Bangkok and The St. Regis Marsa Arabia Island, Doha – use non-invasive diagnostics (heavy-metals and micronutrient hand scans, body composition measures, face/skin analysis and structured questionnaires) to build personalised programmes. That specificity breeds confidence: clear inputs, clear outputs.
But diagnostics only create value if there’s continuity – follow-up, behaviour change and care pathways. For a one- or two-night stay, a lab read-out with no ‘follow-out’ quickly becomes meaningless. These hubs make far more sense when the model includes locals or members.
Where wellness actually scales: branded residences
An emerging and very exciting segment for wellness is the branded residences sector. With dwell time measured in months or years, you can justify diagnostics, coaching and community programming; residents want rituals, not one-offs. It’s no coincidence these schemes carry that ~30% average global price premium over comparable non-branded stock: buyers are paying for the service layer and the standards that underpin it.
Wellness standards: progress in the right direction?
Standards are now arriving to tame the vagueness. MICHELIN has introduced a Wellness Award within its hotel programme — an explicit signal that wellbeing can define an outstanding stay, much as its Keys recognise hotel excellence more broadly. In parallel, WITT and the Wellness Tourism Association have published Core Wellness Standards for Hotels, a baseline across pillars such as healthy eating, movement, nature and local impact, designed to create clarity and curb well-washing.
Will the new awards and standards push us in that direction? I hope so, but my worry is the tick-box temptation. A Heathrow layover shouldn’t look or feel like a Bangkok longevity centre; a Dubai business hotel shouldn’t mimic a destination spa. If we let the frameworks police hygiene while leaving room for brand voice, the guest wins. If we turn wellness into a universal mood-light and a laminated list, we’ve learnt nothing from the last decade of buzzwords.
Wellness needs to be owned by the brand
Fragmentation kills credibility. If ‘wellness’ sits in the spa while F&B pushes unhealthy options, the rooms are too loud to sleep and the sales deck claims ‘holistic wellbeing’, guests will notice. Wellness in hospitality belongs to the brand – not the spa. Only then can it be taken seriously and a holistic, cross-operational approach can be achieved.
Say what ‘wellness’ means at your brand, in your own words; do it across the stay, not just in one room; and be prepared to measure what matters (rest, recovery, uptake) – not just spa revenue. Promise less. Deliver more. That’s how a word we’ve worn thin becomes a reason to book – and a reason to return.
Contact us to explore how we can help craft a holistic wellness strategy that works for your brand.
Written by Catherine Edwards, Chief Growth Officer at QUO
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QUO is a strategic branding agency with offices in Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Singapore, London and Riyadh.
