Access to Nature and Green Space Should Be a Right, Not a Privilege By Tonia Callender, research fellow, GWI We all need nature for our wellbeing. Whether we visit a national park or local gardens, nature and green space make us healthier. [i] Given that the majority of the global population live in urban environments, with vanishing green spaces, it’s not surprising that travelers increasingly…
A Decade of Hot Springs: First-Ever Ten-Year Time Series Data There is no question that nature is essential to all dimensions of our wellness. Nature is also an essential “ingredient” to all kinds of experiences, services and products across the wellness economy: from biophilic design, to forest bathing, to seaweed wraps and plant-based supplements, and so much more. In honor of Earth Day, our data…
A Decade of Wellness Tourism: First-Ever Compilation of 10+ Years of Market Data In 2013, the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) unveiled the Global Wellness Tourism Economy report—a landmark study that defined the parameters and characteristics of the emerging wellness tourism sector and provided, for the first time, market size estimates at the global, regional, and country levels. In that report, GWI first measured wellness tourism…
New GWI Wellness Policy Toolkit Proposes a Changing Paradigm for Wellness Tourism Tomorrow the GWI will release its latest report, Wellness Policy Toolkit: Wellness in Tourism. It is the latest in the GWI policy series, suggesting concrete actions for stakeholders to bring wellness to all in the context of tourism. Importantly, the report introduces a new paradigm, broadening the focus from wellness tourism to wellness…
A new study from the University of California San Francisco (20,000 participants in 106 countries) found that people with depression have higher body temperatures. The researchers believe these findings indicate the potential for depression treatments focused on lowering body temperature—and ironically, how temporarily heating people up (hot yoga, saunas, infrared saunas, hot water treatments), could lead to rebound body temperature lowering that lasts longer than…
Research in Action: Global Wellness Economy Data Powers Japan Roundtable on Wellness Tourism In November 2023, the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) released data for Japan’s wellness economy and its 11 sectors, under GWI’s Geography of Wellness program. A coalition of public-private leaders in the Fukui Prefecture leveraged that important data to kick off a region-wide wellness tourism promotion effort. On November 11, 2023, the region…
