Mindstyle: The Next Generation of Health & Wellness Travel is an APAC-wide insight report by Reuter: Intelligence, the leader in luxury insights & research, created in partnership with ILTM, the luxury travel business event specialists.
The report discovers that health & wellness is top of mind in diverse areas of daily life. With wellness both the mindset and lifestyle, the defining word is ‘mindstyle’, which means ‘the cumulative attitudes and consistent habits of thinking that a person develops about her or his chosen lifestyle’.
Mindstyle is the ideal label to frame the wellness world – put simply: during luxury travel, your customers expect the same health & wellness experiences – or further elevated versions thereof – as they already have around them.
This excerpt from the report looks at sports & exercise – find the full report available here, free.
Sports & Exercise: Holistic Transformation
According to the World Health Organization, worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. An Asian Development Bank Institute study found that over 1 billion people across Asia are overweight or obese with Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand topping the list in Southeast Asia. Obesity is becoming more common among children in the region with the number of overweight children under five growing by 38 percent between 2000 and 2016.
Gym equipment is important, but today’s luxury traveller expects more. Back home, with GuavaPasses and similar services enabling anyone to take part in exercise classes as drop ins across major cities, hotels are upping their game. Seoul’s Westin Chosun Hotel offers around 70 different workout equipments, while the city’s Banyan Tree Club & Spa has a rooftop jogging track.
Resorts are taking note of the trend. The Body Camp in Ibiza and Mallorca offers holistic boot-camp style transformation holidays combining yoga, high-intensity exercise and healthy nutrition. In Asia-Pacific, Revivo in Bali incorporates an 8,000 square meter fitness area MOVEO, with a martial arts hall and kinesis wall for activities ranging from private and group classes in High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) to yoga and pilates.
Running is gaining popularity and across Asia-Pacific close to 300 marathons will take place in 2019. Participation in marathons in the region has increased by 263 percent 3 over the last decade. Marathon Tours and Travel specializes in travel services for runners and have created the Antarctica and Madagascar Marathons and the Seven Continents Club to cater for serious runners’ globetrotting needs.
High-intensity training is gaining traction across the region. Australia’s homegrown F45 High-Intensity, Circuit Training workout classes have spread to New Zealand, South Korea, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and India. While CrossFit, originally from the US, has opened gyms, or ‘boxes’, in all of the above as well as Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. China sees one new box open every day!
Hospitality & travel in partnership with sports brands
• Six Senses Fiji offers integrated programmes that include not just facials, massages and detox cleanses but also professional surfing lessons and PADI dive courses.
• Santiburi in Koh Samui has extensive activity facilities including water sports, fitness, tennis, soccer, badminton, yoga, Pilates and priority access to the Santibury Country Club for golf.
• Adzentures in the US specialise in combing yoga with other activities, such as yoga mountain climbing in Slovenia, yoga and music in Nashville. While others combine snowshoe hiking in the Austrian Alps, surfing in Bali, or horse- back riding in Spain with yoga.
• Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific opened a 700-square-foot yoga and meditation sanctuary, and recently partnered with Pure Group to offer gym and yoga facilities to its frequent fliers.
• London’s Stansted Airport partnered with fitness brand FRAME to offer a host of free pop-up classes ranging from flow yoga to fascia release sessions.
Where it was
A low-quality gym called a ‘fitness centre’
Where it is
Upgrading into more diverse options and higher quality
Where it’s heading
Entire holidays dedicated to personal fitness and partnerships with global fitness leaders
Photo credit: world surf league
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