Wellness Economy Statistics & Facts

The Global Wellness Institute (GWI) is recognized as the leading source for authoritative wellness industry research. Since 2007, the GWI has commissioned and published numerous research reports on the global wellness economy, including our flagship publication, the Global Wellness Economy Monitor. All reports are available free to the public. Data highlights from recent studies are below. To download all GWI research, including special reports for certain industry sectors and geographic areas, visit Wellness Economy Research.

Global Wellness Economy

GWI is the first and only organization to conduct comprehensive, objective, and global research on the wellness industry. We first defined and measured the wellness economy and its component sectors in 2014, these figures are now updated and released every year in the Global Wellness Economy Monitor. Our most recent report, Global Wellness Economy Monitor 2024 (released in November 2024), provides data for 2019-2023.

  • The global wellness economy was valued at $4.9 trillion in 2019 and then fell to $4.5 trillion in 2020, due to the massive economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the wellness economy has recovered quickly. In 2022, the global wellness economy reached $5.6 trillion, nearly 14% higher than its size in 2019.
  • As the world continues to recover from the pandemic, GWI predicts that the wellness economy will return to its robust growth. We project 8.6% average annual growth, with the wellness economy reaching $8.5 trillion in 2027.
  • The wellness economy represented 5.6% of global economic output in 2022.

 

The Global Wellness Economy in 2023
AT A GLANCE

    • The global wellness economy has grown rapidly in the aftermath of the pandemic and reached a new peak of $6.3 trillion in 2023 (representing 6.03% of global GDP).
    • The wellness economy is a major force in the global economy, larger in size than the green economy, IT, and sports.
    • All regions have recovered from the pandemic, but North America, Europe, and Middle East-North Africa have shown the strongest resilience and growth from 2019-2023.
    • Nine of the eleven wellness sectors have fully recovered from the pandemic, with a 2023 market size that exceeds their 2019 level (thermal/mineral springs and workplace wellness have not yet recovered).
    • We project that the global wellness economy will grow at a robust rate of 7.3% annually from 2023-2028, a growth rate substantially higher than the projected global GDP growth (4.8% according to current IMF forecasts). As all of the eleven sectors recover from the pandemic, the wellness economy is expected to reach nearly $6.8 trillion in 2024, and march toward
      nearly $9.0 trillion in 2028.