Spa & wellness
Right: Clear and open spaces are typically used by retreats to give a sense of mental relief and freedom.
Below: Luxury spa offerings are now no longer just about pampering, but about staying healthy.
Previous page: Mandarin Oriental in Bodrum, Turkey, now offers a four-day ‘Mindfulness and Body Bliss’ experience.
From pampering to well-being For now, plans for Amangiri’s sleep retreat have been put on ice – though a reboot in the future would likely have popular appeal. In the US, lack of sufficient sleep has been declared a public health epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to a 2019 assessment by Frost & Sullivan, the global ‘sleep economy’ is set to reach $585bn by 2024 – a figure that has no doubt risen since the onset of the pandemic, which triggered a sharp increase in anxiety-related sleeping problems and insomnia in the UK, according to the Guardian. Figures like this reveal a cruel irony in the cancellation of Amangiri’s sleep retreat by the Covid- 19 crisis: although the retreat was dreamt up pre- pandemic, the impact of successive lockdowns on mental health, not to mention the effects of long Covid on physical well-being, has made the health and wellness sector all the more desirable and, in some cases, essential. Covid-19 may have brought this into sharp focus, but the broader shift within the spa sector from pampering towards health and well- being had been in motion for some time before the onset of the pandemic.
In 2015, the global wellness market – including fitness, beauty, anti-ageing, alternative medicine, healthy eating, weight loss and mind and body training – was estimated at $3.7trn, with wellness tourism one of the fastest growing sectors in the industry, according to the Global Wellness Institute. This tourism trend coincides with a wider cultural interest in wellness, life- styling, and the holistic meeting of mind and body – or “the general focus on biohacking and life prolongation”, as Surget puts it, which “are very exciting topics to [Aman’s] niche, sophisticated and curious clientele”. The cult of biohacking – the manipulation of
mind and body to optimise performance outside of conventional medicine – is a driving force behind the wider wellness shift within the spa sector, and often goes hand in hand with trends towards alternative therapies, spiritual discovery and holistic self- improvement. Luxury hotel, Mandarin Oriental, Bodrum in Turkey, offers the ‘Mindfulness and Body Bliss’ package – an intensive four-day programme of personal fitness, detox yoga, traditional hammam rituals and breathing exercises that combines health tourism with spiritual tourism. As Ferbâl Yaman, marketing and communications manager at Mandarin Oriental explains, the spa “uses natural, handmade ingredients from the resort’s own gardens for its remedies […] and guests can discover invigorating, centuries-old Turkish water therapies in authentic hammams”. The Mindfulness and Body Bliss retreat is designed not only to improve one’s physical well-being, but to reach a state of inner peace. “Our Mindfulness and Body Bliss package is a way to rebuild your strength, both mentally and physically,” Yaman explains. “You let go of the complex world outside to reach a powerful peace within. It is the path to a pure and empowered mind. The experience of this pure mind, released from the world, is incredibly blissful.” Even the interior architecture of the spa – designed
by Antonio Citterio – has a spiritual quality, with “elegant, contemporary, free-flowing spaces where smooth lines, natural colour palette and organic
46 Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
Mandarin; Amangiri
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