The Fitness Travel Trend
The Cornell Centre for Hospitality Research recently revealed that only 22% of United states’ hotel visitors still use the onsite gyms. The study, which covered 33 hotels in the United states across six global hotel brands, seemingly contradicts another research report released by the Global wellness Institute, which states, “Global wellness tourism revenues grew by 14% from $494.1 billion in 2013 to $563.2 billion in 2015. A growth rate more than twice as fast as overall tourism expenditures (6.9%).”
so, if wellness tourism is increasing while usage of hotel gyms is decreasing, where are travellers getting their fitness fixes?
Many recent travel trends can be categorised as some form of wellness travel. As described by the Global wellness Institute, “Wellness falls firmly on the proactive side, incorporating attitudes and activities that prevent disease, improve health, enhance quality of life, and bring a person to increasingly optimum levels of well-being.” This means that, while the industry might be calling it different things from year to year, what many travellers want from their travel experiences may be increased physical and mental wellbeing.
lee Kelsall of adventure travel company, Ker & Downey Africa, says, “The driver of fitness travel is not just that people care more about their physical appearance today than they may have previously, the real driver of the fitness travel trend is about overall wellness – mental and physical. Travellers want to be active, they want to connect with the destination, and they want to be in touch with the culture – all while looking after their bodies. This is a need that cannot be serviced inside four walls of a hotel gym, it needs to be sought out in the streets, peaks, waterways, and forests of travel destinations.”
Many travellers are increasingly making the departure from big brand hotel holidays in favour of adventurous and thrilling experiences, and focusing on making a positive impact on the destinations they visit, either through active participation in charitable work, or via financial contributions to the communities, local businesses, and the conservation of wildlife in the area they are visiting. Through this, these travellers want the destination to impact positively on them as well.
Tour operators across the globe are looking for fresh ways in which to satisfy varying combinations of these new travel requirements in order to ensure that travellers are fully satisfied with, and enriched by, their experiences. Many organisations are responding to these wellness travel trends by reaching into their pockets for additional capital to build more spas or manufactured retreats.
It seems, however, that the true potential in capitalising on fitness and wellness travel trends lies in leveraging the adventurously active and meaningfully cultural characteristics of remote destinations to bring impactful moments to travellers.
Examples of this approach are easy to find in Ker & Downey Africa’s collection of luxventure™ experiences, which include: gorilla trekking in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Congo; summiting the iconic mountain peaks of Kenya and Tanzania; running marathons through wildlife conservancies; as well as walking safaris and conquering age-old trails along south Africa’s historic coastline. All of these activities provide continual opportunities to engage with and improve the lives of the communities and wildlife visited along the way.
The demand for wellness getaways is on the rise, and companies operating in the travel industry will need to respond to the call for meaningfully active travel experiences, or risk further poor investment into amenities that are no longer appealing to many modern travellers.