Wellness Tourism Means Secondary Activities For Most Global Travelers

Wellness tourism is about as wide-ranging as the travel industry itself and there's a vast spectrum of the types of trips that travelers take to improve their well-being. As more airports add spas and hotels create or acquire brands designed to help travelers maintain healthy lifestyles, most global travelers aren't taking trips specifically for wellness purposes, according to research from the Global Wellness Institute, an organization that educates the public and private sectors about preventative health and wellness. Only seven percent (691 million trips) of all global leisure trips in 2015 were wellness related, Global Wellness Institute found, and of that, about 89 percent of trips were for secondary wellness experiences and 11 percent (78 million trips) were primary wellness trips. Secondary wellness trips include visits to spas, hot springs or yoga classes, for example, but these aren't primary reasons for secondary wellness trips. Primary wellness trips -- when travelers go somewhere specifically for their well-being -- include stays at ashrams or yoga retreats, for example. Most wellness-minded travelers include activities such as spa visits, one of the most popular wellness activities for travelers, with sightseeing, shopping, dining or business meetings they do on trips. Secondary