Hot Springs Initiative
2019 Trends
TREND 1: Multigenerational Features – and Accessibility – Make Hot Springs a Destination For All
Hot springs are being designed with infants and seniors in mind to provide environments, activities and accessibility for people at all stages of life. Experiences range from baby baths and walk-in pools to massaging hydro jets and water slides. Whether it is high energy fun or low impact and easy entry pools, hot springs facility design is taking heed of the visitor’s age and ability (mobility). Within the facilities and in different resorts in hot springs regions, facilities are providing separate spaces for high and low energy activities, enabling tranquility and activity to be offered without compromising the experience of either.
The 130-year-old Glenwood Hot Springs in Colorado has been undergoing extensive renovations, expanding the reach and attraction.
In recent years, some hot spring enterprises in China have cooperated with real estate developers and commercial insurance companies to develop retirement villages centered around hot springs.
All five of the Blue Zones (regions in the world) identified in the Dan Buettner lead research study into the longest-lived populations on earth have hot springs in their region.
TREND 2: Hot Springs Take Lead in Connecting Community
As places where the community comes together for health, wellbeing and connection, hot springs are engaging with the broader community in which they are located. This can take the form of providing health and fitness programs with special mid-week entry prices targeting local visitors, but it also involves direct engagement with community organizations through philanthropy and social service. In particular, issues of community mental and physical health are areas where hot springs can contribute to the fabric of the community in which they are located.
Esalen Institute, in California, offers a wide range of wellbeing courses.
Wilbur Hot Springs, also in California, donated 10 percent of its revenue to water.org on World Bathing Day, June 22, 2018.
TREND 3: More Wellness Programming Increases Appeal and Revenues
Massage, yoga, Pilates, hot-cold experiences, forest bathing (Shinrin-yoku), aqua therapy and many more activities are being woven into the hot springs offering, stretching the reach beyond the traditional relaxation and escape market to the proactive, self-help, life-engaging and motivated consumer. This has manifested itself into a one-day holiday where visitors are provided a “business or first-class” hot springs experience with more space and time to enjoy time away from their busy lives.
Austria’s Vitality World group, at facilities such as the Aqua Dome, has achieved double-digit growth with its one-day holidays.
Glen Ivy Hot Springs in the mountain outskirts of Los Angeles is utilizing a hot springs concierge during busy times to enhance the guest experience and help share knowledge about the water and correct aftercare post bathing.
The Chinese Government issued a Healthy China 2030 Guideline, which has encouraged a consumer-led demand on hot springs facilities to provide more than a relaxation and escape destination.
TREND 4: Hot Springs Maximize Connection to Nature and Environment
Increasingly evidence-based research is being conducted, showing the connection between nature and mental and spiritual health. Hot springs stemming from the earth with life- and health-enhancing minerals and natural warmth provide an all-weather and all-seasons connection to the environment. Hot springs designs are focusing on providing an aesthetic and physical connection to the environment and, with that, comes a sublime and almost subliminal health outcome—a sense of being connected to and at one with the natural environment.
The Japanese town of Nosawa, and many other towns throughout Japan, have produced multilingual guides to the Japanese cultural way of bathing to help make the experience more enjoyable.
Two hours out of Tokyo, the ancient hot springs town of Kusatsu offers a trail of hot springs (onsen in Japanese) where guests walk through the beautiful town in their traditional yukata robes and geta (wooden clogs) from hot spring to hot spring. In any season, guests feel connected to the surrounding space and find blissful relaxation.
In 2017, the Chinese National Tourism Administration, under which the hot springs industry is recognized as one of the 10 pillars, was amalgamated into the Ministry of Culture, creating the new “Ministry of Culture and Tourism,” tightening the natural link between the two.
TREND 5: Extreme Bathing = Extreme Wellness
Hot springs in mountains and natural wilderness settings are playing host to extreme wellness retreats and adventures. The extreme comfort of natural hot pools provides a stark contrast to bathing in snow-covered mountain streams. Hot saunas and cold plunge pools. Walking in wilderness areas and laying in portable, heated, hydro hammocks or makeshift steam room tents. Pushing our bodies to extremes helps stimulate the immune system and the body’s self-healing mechanisms and is getting the attention of the global media and the global health-conscious consumer.
New Zealand’s Maruia Hot Springs has been offering extreme wellness programs that combine Wim Hof-style hot and cold bathing experiences with talks on nutrition, walks, yoga massage and mindfulness.
Peninsula Hot Springs in Australia has launched a Nordic zone with saunas, ice caves, cold plunge pools and an ice plunge pool supported by trained guides who take guests on fire and ice experiences.
