15 Takeaways from 2021 Global Wellness Summit

15 Quick Takeaways from Last Week’s Global Wellness Summit   The Global Wellness Summit wrapped up last Friday, and it was a heady three days of dozens of keynotes and panels addressing the many ways that we’re now entering “A NEW New Era of Health & Wellness” The conference, celebrating its 15th anniversary, brought together a historic number of experts from both the medical and wellness worlds (for instance, six doctors and professors from Harvard University keynoted).   We could never summarize the depth and diversity of all the talks and conversations there, but at the end of each day, the 2021 co–chairs–Victor Koo, chairman…

Trends in the News – Week of November 24, 2021

Medicine’s Wellness Conundrum–The New Yorker  This article discusses the rising commingling of medicine and wellness at hospitals–and how patients and doctors don’t always see eye to eye. Patients demand alternative therapies–touch treatments, mental support and stress-reduction, nutritional advice, etc.–that address them in a more human, holistic way. Far more hospitals now have a wellness facility of some kind, and cancer patients in particular are demanding services that fall under the aegis of wellness. For some physicians, offering…

TREND: Healthcare Meets Wellness – Recent Signs of a New Convergence

TREND: Healthcare Meets Wellness–Recent Signs of a New Convergence Our 2021 trend “The Self-Care Renaissance” argued that a new era was upon us–one where the complementary yet often combative relationship between medicine and wellness gets rethought, leading to new conversations and convergences between these two worlds. The pandemic was the shock that has forced healthcare to finally focus on prevention and more holistic models of medicine. At the same time, wellness companies are increasingly forced…

Trends in the News – Week of November 10th 2021

What Can Covid-19 Teach Us About the Mysteries of Smell?–The New York Times COVID-19’s strangest symptom–losing one’s sense of smell–has opened up new doors to understanding our most neglected sense. If you want to understand our long cultural history that has denigrated the importance of the sense of smell and the mounting research on how smell is a “startling” and complex superpower–read this article! It covers so much:…

TREND: A Wave of Scent Innovation Fueled by the Pandemic

TREND: A Wave of Scent Innovation Fueled by the Pandemic    Fragrance is being developed and applied for wellbeing in dramatically new ways   Back in 2019, one of our key trends was how fragrance was getting a wellness makeover. With a new understanding of scent’s role in our mental and physical health, there was a new wave of functional fragrances and scent-for-wellbeing applications starting to rise.     The pandemic has kicked…

Trends in the News – Week of October 27th 2021

The New Overtourism Debate–Travel Weekly A great overview of how global travel destinations are creating new plans to fight overtourism–whether by ending mass-market marketing campaigns, curtailing short-terms rentals, or by banning cruise ships. The new tourism vision revolves around bringing in high-yield tourists, but the challenge will be how to not erect new travel barriers for the non-rich while keeping the numbers and destruction down.    Should Some of the World’s Endangered Places Be Off-limits to Tourists?–National Geographic  An in-depth piece with tourism experts explaining the different models now being launched to address overtourism. National parks, overrun by pandemic travelers seeking remote nature, are…

TREND: Fighting Overtourism Moves from Talk to Real Action

TREND: Fighting Overtourism Moves from Talk to Real Action     The experiments–from banning short-term rentals to nixing cruise ships to charging fees to enter a place to marketing only to “conscious travelers”– are really heating up   In our 2021 trend “The Year of the Travel Reset,” author and New York Times columnist, Elaine Glusac, predicted that this long travel pause caused by the pandemic would give everyone—consumers and travel suppliers—a rare, crucial opportunity to think of the ways that travel could be…

Biophilia is not a “trend” but the long-term future of architecture and design

Biophilia: Not a Passing ‘Trend’ but the Long-Term Future of Architecture and Design     Homes, cities, workplaces and hotels intentionally designed to reconnect people with nature are at a major inflection point   Biophilic design specifically connects people with the diverse, complex natural world to improve their physical and mental wellbeing. Biophilia is obviously not a new concept: The term was coined by psychologist Erich Fromm in 1964 and made popular by Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson in the 80s, whose influential book Biophilia posited that if…

TREND: Hospitality brands set sights on lucrative wellness real estate sector

Hospitality brands set sights on lucrative wellness real estate sector   Wellness real estate has become a natural—and profitable—extension for brands like Aman Resorts, Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Mondrian, Montage and more  Yesterday, the Global Wellness Summit’s nonprofit sister organization, the Global Wellness Institute (GWI), hosted its inaugural Wellness Real Estate & Communities Symposium in New York and virtually around the globe. (The full day’s presentations and takeaway materials are available on demand.) The event drew hundreds of attendees…

Wellness Real Estate and Communities: New Momentum, New Directions

Wellness Real Estate and Communities: New Momentum, New Directions The pandemic ignited demand for “well” homes and new trends–from developments that blend home, work and wellness to a huge new value for nature to a shakeup in senior living to thinking beyond the billionaires Waaay back in 2007, GWS trends forecasters named “spa real estate” a rising trend (when destination spas were starting to add…

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