This month, the LA Times featured six articles on wellness travel, highlighting GWI research and including quotes from GWI Research Director Beth McGroarty: “Vacation time has become precious, and people can’t afford to feel more stressed, sicker and tired from them.” Read the full stories
What’s on My Mind: Grrr! Lack of Reliable Data is so Frustrating
Last week I attended a medical tourism gathering in Tampa, Florida. One thing surprised me—and frustrated me at the same time. Many of the speakers—in fact, almost all of the speakers—said something along the lines of, “We don’t have reliable figures.” Really? Still?
New Report with updated Wellness Tourism Data
The GWI has created one “go-to” report for wellness tourism, combining the first-ever wellness tourism market research released in 2013 with updated data released in 2014. Wellness tourism continues to be one of the fastest-growing travel categories: revenues expanded from $438 billion in 2012 to $494 billion in 2013—a 12.7 percent growth rate that was 40 percent larger than originally forecast.
“Can Reading Make You Happier?”- The New Yorker, Ceridwen Dovey, June 9, 2015
Yes, it can! When we read stories, we draw on the same brain networks that are employed when we’re trying to guess at another person’s feelings, and studies show that people who read a lot of fiction tend to be better at empathizing with others (as well as sleep better and have lower levels of stress and depression). If we want to treat ourselves better, we can use “bibliotherapy”: an ancient practice that encourages reading for therapeutic effect.
Top 12 Countries for Inbound Wellness Tourism
Slicing the Global Wellness Institute’s 2014 research on wellness tourism always yields new insights. We have previously reported that domestic wellness tourism makes up 84 percent of this travel category’s total trips. But which nations are the winners in driving the most inbound/international wellness trips globally? READ MORE to find out the top 12 countries…
More Vacations: Less Heart Disease
It’s summer vacation time, and there is a solid, body of medical evidence that suggests vacations are indeed good for one’s health. For instance, the famed Framingham Heart Study found that women who took a vacation once every six years or less were nearly eight times more likely to develop coronary heart disease or have a heart attack than those who took at least two vacations a year. Another study of 12,000 men at high risk for coronary heart disease found that those who failed to take annual vacations were 32 percent more likely to die of a heart attack.
