African focus (left to right): Magatte Wade; Morocco’s Minister of Tourism; and Elaine Okeke-Martin of Africa’s spa association
What we need now is for more companies to offer spa internships, as it’s something that’s clearly lacking in the industry
Day falls on the second Saturday in June and the idea is to encourage people to change one thing in their lives for the better – whether its to drink more water, eat organically or to stop using plastic bottles. This June, Aksoy got celebrity support by taking Global Wellness Day to the Emmys and now she’s calling for the spa community to become ambassadors. There was lots of news from the Spa
Education Forum. Its task forces have been busy creating a global framework for staff mentee and mentorship programmes, as well as a comprehensive internship manual which any spa can use or adapt. “What we need now is for more companies to off er spa internships, as it’s something that’s clearly lacking in the industry,” said forum facilitator Lori Hutchinson of Hutchinson Consulting. Work is also well underway on creating a social media and PR campaign to attract more people to the global spa workforce. “Treat staff the same as guests and give
them the same access to wellbeing”, was a takeaway point from the Hotel Wellness & Hotel Spa Forum. It was also recognised that if hotels and spas are to properly deliver wellness, they need to go way beyond just healthy food and look into areas such as sensory perception and brain energy. It’s no surprise that the Wellness
Tourism Roundtable Forum co-chaired by Anni Hood, founder of Wellness Business Consultancy, and Josef Woodman, CEO of Patients Beyond Borders, was a jam- packed session. Excitement surrounding
Trade Organization, has pledged her support in championing wellness tourism throughout the organisation. Another priority, echoing the point made in the Global Hot Springs Forum, is to quantify the economic benefi t of wellness travel to the bottom line of businesses. In summary, Hood said: “Here, in
this environment, there’s already great understanding and knowledge for wellness tourism. External to this, we still have many bases to cover but momentum and recognition is already evident.”
Hot Springs Forum: new research shows the sector is worth US$50bn and spans more than 26,800 facilities
wellness tourism – travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one’s personal wellbeing – has picked up following the fi rst Global Wellness Tourism Congress (GWTC) in 2013 and SRI’s inaugural research showing that wellness tourism had an estimated value of US$439bn (€346bn, £273bn) in 2012 (see SB13/4 p80). Indeed, that fi gure has already shot up to US$494bn (€384bn, £301bn) as outlined on p94. That said, the group concurred that
continuing education about ‘what is wellness tourism’ is still required at government, public and private sector and consumer levels. Already, Yolanda Perdomo, a director of the affi liate members programme for the UN World
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All about Africa With the backdrop of Marrakech, a new continent for the GSWS, much attention was focused on Africa, its growing economy and middle class, and what this means for the spa industry. The Moroccan Agency for Tourism and
Investment (SMIT) was one of the key sponsors for the summit and delegates heard about Morocco’s ambitious 2020 Vision which has been implemented by His Majesty King Mohammed VI (see SB10/4 p40 and SB10/2 p64). “His majesty thinks of tourism as an opportunity to create wealth and jobs,” said Morocco’s Minister of Tourism Lahcen Haddad, who explained that the overall goal is to double the size of tourism in the country by 2020 – adding at least 200,000 tourist beds – to put it among the top 20 tourist destina- tions in the world. “We think that wellness and the spa industry is a real opportunity to help develop the tourism sector.”
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