While spas and wellness have grabbed the headlines in recent years, the exponential growth of holistic retreats has attracted little attention. Yet, with the pace of life getting faster and renewed interest in the meaning of life and spirituality, more people than ever before are visiting retreats – to reflect, heal, grow, change or just switch off from 24/7 connectivity. As the world’s largest retreat market, the Americas offer a bewildering choice of thousands of holistic retreats spanning a wide spectrum of experiences, themes and destinations for all ages and budgets.
This report looks at holistic retreats in the Americas and covers the mainland areas of North America (including Hawaii), Central America and South America. Holistic tourism is a niche but growing segment of the booming US$639-billion wellness-tourism industry, a significant sector of global tourism that is predicted to grow to US$919 billion by 2022, according to the Global Wellness Tourism Economy 2018, by the Global Wellness Institute (GWI).
Due to the fact that wellness is holistic – spanning the physical, mental, social, emotional, spiritual, and environmental spheres, wellness travel is also multifaceted, and encompasses a large and diverse range of activities and pursuits that create opportunities for all kinds of businesses and providers.
Wellness tourism reflects changes in modern life and individual needs. Time-space compression may have led to exciting opportunities for new ways of globalised work and travel but has also led to increased alienation of individuals, loss of community structures and reduced family and kinship networks. Wellness tourism is evolving – arguably, playing a role in stress management, personal development, reflection, connection, and meaning that cannot always be attained in everyday life. This new more holistic form of tourism focuses on health, rejuvenation and a sense of discovery or purpose for the self (Catherine Kelly, Analysing Wellness Tourism Provision, A Retreat Operators’ Study, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 2010).
Throughout the vast American continents, holistic retreats are part of the wide variety of services and facilities that make up the wellness sector, among them preventive health services, spas, beauty, fitness, physical and personal challenges, adventure travel, weight-loss regimes and other related areas. Yet despite the growing number of holistic retreats in the Americas and around the world and their valuable contribution to the holistic health of so many people, the retreat sector is an under-researched aspect of wellness tourism, rarely mentioned in travel studies or statistics.
Holistic retreats are places for quiet reflection and rejuvenation, an opportunity to regain good health and/or a time for spiritual reassessment and renewal, either alone or in a group (Retreats Online 2007, as quoted in Journeys of the Self: the Need for Retreat by Catherine Kelly and Melanie Smith, 2006).
This report looks at the following areas:
How are holistic tourism and holistic retreats defined?
What is the extent of the holistic-retreat market in the Americas?
What are the demographics of holistic tourists?
What are the holistic-retreat categories and activities?
What are the geographical characteristics of retreats throughout the Americas?
Who are the key players in the holistic-retreat market?
