Global Wellness Institute predicts more sophisticated medical wellness destinations

The Global Wellness Institute has highlighted that COVID awakened the need for better integration between the wellness industry and the healthcare sector and that we are on the cusp of a new kind of 'Medical Renaissance', where two complementary yet persistently competing entities - healthcare and wellness - will increasingly come together at sohphisticated medical -wellness resorts.

The Global Wellness Institute predicts an era where healthcare and wellness become more intertwined - from wellness starting to lean into science, establishing standards and holding itself accountable, to healthcare borrowing from the wellness playbook and evolving what has become a sterile and strictly curative industry into a more holistic, prevention-focused and even pleasurable one. 

One distinct way that healthcare and wellness are converging anew is in the momentum for bigger, more sophisticated integrative medical-wellness resorts. While this is very much a trend at the high-end, destinations are betting that people with means will seek places that bring a much broader array of medical technologies and wellness approaches together in one place. And it’s increasingly a specific kind of medicine being delivered, revolving around advanced testing and diagnostics (cardiovascular, respiratory, hormone, nutrition/microbiome, DNA, epigenetics, etc.). Because people want to be programmed on more serious, science-backed, personalised medical and wellness plans, they want to see the “whys” for that plan and also the data on whether the wellness stay and plan is actually working.

While Europe has been pioneering medical-wellness resorts for years  there is now more activity underway globally. Tri Vananda, coming to Thailand next year, looks to take the integrative medical-wellness concept to new and bigger places - and RAKxa, which just opened near Bangkok, marries a team of doctors, medical diagnostic testing and comprehensive wellness therapies.

Zoya Health & Wellbeing Resort will open at Ajman in the United Arab Emirates in September, where the personalised medical-wellness game plans begin with doctor consultations and medical diagnostics. Sports City in Dubai strikes a happy balance between cosmopolitan living and health-centric lifestyles. It is here that Zoya Wellbeing is developing a promising project that defines and refines healthy living holistically. The Zoya Wellbeing & Sports Complex will not only be a haven of healthy living for its residents, but also a perfect setting for performance-focussed athletes, sportspersons and teams to train for world-class excellence. 

While it may not be the most democratic trend (these comprehensive medical-wellness destinations don’t come cheap), they do represent new models where you see a new democracy between ‘medicine’ and ‘wellness’: both more medical and wellness approaches under one ‘roof’—and a greater balance between the two.

More information is available in the 2021 Global Wellness Trends Report.

Image: Zoya Health & Wellbeing Resort will open at Ajman in the United Arab Emirates in September.