Commoditising on misery: How accessible and legitimate is wellness tourism?

Mental health has become more paramount throughout the years. It is estimated that 1 in 4 people will have some issue with their mental health during their lifespan (Mind, 2020), although some studies estimate that we will all deal with some form of mental illness.
In England alone, 1 in 6 people have reported experiencing mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety in a week (Mind, 2020).

As the nation becomes more aware of the negative impacts mental health can have on their own wellness, people have started to look at ways in which they can relax, unwind and take a break from their stresses. Typically people take holidays in order to help them relax from daily life and stresses.
Krippendorf (1987) argues that one of the main reasons people travel is to get away from their daily routine.

As more people have decided to travel in order to reduce stress, the tourism sector has brought into this and many companies have started to offer ‘Wellness Tourism’. Wellness tourism is defined as “Travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing personal wellbeing” (Global Wellness Institute, 2020). Wellness tourism is said to help combat the negativity from daily life, by providing an opportunity for those taking part to improve their mental wellbeing.

In the years 2015 - 2017, the wellness tourism sector grew from £563 billion to £639 billion, a rise of 6.5% (Rubinstein, 2020). This sector in tourism has reportedly had twice as much growth as tourism as a whole has (Global Wellness Institute, 2020)
Wellness Tourism Association president, Anne Dimon stated that wellness travellers can be from any age and background, but the majority of travellers are higher educated, women, and usually between the ages of 30 to 60 (Wellness Tourism Association, 2020).

Despite this sector being so large, there have been arguments in regards to the effectiveness of wellness tourism.
Andre Spicer, author of ‘The Wellness Syndrome’, Spicer argues that the pressure to enhance our personal wellbeing has begun to have a negative effect on our mental state. Spicer states that wellness tourism gives people a positive feeling which is felt at the time of the activity. Spicer continues to state that these trips usually act as a temporary replacement for negative feelings or beliefs that attendees go with and are used as an escape from people's everyday lives (Spicer, 2014).
Typically wellness trips involve luxury facilities at a high price, often excluding people of a lower social class. Equinox is a prime example of this. Equinox is a high end health facility with gyms worldwide who have recently brought into the wellness tourism idea, Leah Howe, director of Equinox’s travel line Equinox Explore stated that “100% of its clubs have expressed an interest in attending a trip, Several of the six excursions planned for 2020 have sold out” (Howe, 2019). The cheapest Equinox Explore excursion is a four day running tour of Florence, the package starts at £2350, ranging up to £6250 for the more expensive excursion which is six days of hiking in Morocco.

This paper explores how wellness tourism brands have comodertised on people's misery and aim their brands at higher class individuals, with some using false scientific information to gain more attention from potential travellers and boost revenue.


Hall, C., 2011. Health and medical tourism: a kill or cure for global public health?. Tourism Review, 66(1/2), pp.4-15.
Rubinstein, P., 2020. How The Wellness Industry Is Taking Over Travel. [online] Bbc.com. Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200203-how-the-wellness-industry-is-taking-over-travel> [Accessed 7 May 2020].
Spicer, A., 2015. The Wellness Syndrome. 1st ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.

I initially chose this paper due to my interest of the wellness tourism industry and how it operates. Firstly, it is important to understand the motivations behind a person choosing to participate in wellness tourism, which the author articulates well, especially with how much attention the effects of mental health is having on society over the last five years.

The author elaborates further by stating that although the purpose of the trip is to reduce stress and provide individuals participating an environment where forget about their obligations and responsibilities associated with the daily life i.e. career, family, friends etc. it does not provide a permanent solution, only temporary (Spicer, 2014), that is until they have to return back to their real life. In a way this goes against the whole concept of Wellness Tourism as it does not provide any long lasting relief due to the support mechanisms that are put in place on Wellness Tourism retreats being removed once the retreat is over.

The author also makes a key point regarding the inclusivity of Wellness Tourism, stating that wellness trips are usually only available to the more affluent members of society (Kasakov and Oyner, 2020) with the price of retreats and facility centres being costing thousands of pounds.
Moreover, the paper highlights how the ‘Wellness Tourism’ industry has taken advantage on the ‘misery’ that exists due to feeling of an unfulfilled life (Spicer, 2014). This is key as it demonstrates why tourists are motivated to participate in wellness tourism, however, it neglects to mention the different types of retreats that exist within the Wellness Tourism industry, including, but not limited to, digital detox retreats (Saiidi, 2019), exploration of oneself and the rekindling of failing relationships with families and/or partners (Damijanic and Sergo, 2013, 5).

Lastly, I thought the paper could have let the reader know whether wellness trips always hold out on their promise of relieving stress, or whether they do not provide the expected results. Cohen et al. (2017) elaborates further on this stating the participants who took part in week long retreats left feeling largely content and unfulfilled.

References
Damijanic, A.T. and Sergo, Z. (2013) Determining Travel Motivations of Wellness Tourism. Thought and Practice, 3-20. Available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258239854_Determining_Travel_Motivations_of_Wellness_Tourist [accessed 14 May 2020]

Kazakov, S. and Oyner, O. (2020), "Wellness tourism: a perspective article", Tourism Review, 1-6. Available from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/TR-05-2019-0154/full/pdf?casa_token=UAvl_8D3acQAAAAA:BunodCT5N6dIQhPRkmjEz2xXmbNvlcRLGU0JZU3WdHkkepy2spUDzqrn5mrUXNRbHAnQ_RFuSXyxqNguNxFRCSg9mgn07ja1Tye-ffR1kQkZ9TQ8IIXuEQ [accessed 14 May 2020]

Saiidi, U. (2018) Silent retreat: What a 3-day digital detox did for me. CNBC. Available from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/23/silent-retreat-what-a-3-day-digital-detox-did-for-me.html [accessed 14 May 2020]

Spicer, A. (2015) The Wellness Syndrome. 1st ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.