Katherine Johnston and Ophelia Yeung, senior research fellows from the institute, presented the new data to a packed room at Steelcase headquarters.
Other speakers at the event included Susie Ellis, chairman and CEO of the Global Wellness Institute, who spoke on trends; and Mehmet Oz, surgeon, professor at Columbia University, and television personality, and Anjan Chatterjee, chair of neurology at Pennsylvania Hospital and author of The Aesthetic Brain, who both shared remarks to contextualize the data.
Data mining
The Global Wellness Institute gathers data on five key wellness industry sectors: wellness tourism, wellness lifestyle real estate, the spa business, thermal / mineral springs, and workplace wellness. And to round out its report, the institute aggregates and analyses data from outside sources on five other sectors: beauty and anti-aging; healthy eating, nutrition, and weight loss; prevention and personalized medicine and public health; fitness and mind-body; and complementary and alternative medicine.
Data in the report reflects the global wellness economy of 2015. As the institute’s report explains, “the wellness economy encompasses industries that enable consumers to incorporate wellness activities and lifestyles into their daily lives.”
That year, workplace wellness accounted for $43bn of this economy. Thermal / mineral springs were $51bn. The spa industry came in at $99bn. Wellness lifestyle real estate accounted for $119bn. Complementary and alternative medicine was $199bn. Prevention and personalized medicine and public health came in at $534bn, the fitness and mind-body sector at $542bn. And, wellness tourism was $563bn of the economy.
Moving up in value, healthy eating, nutrition, and weight loss accounted for $648bn, while beauty and anti-aging outperformed all other sectors with $999bn.
Looking ahead
While the team at The Global Wellness Institute sees significant potential for growth and cooperation among the ten sectors, “the wellness economy also faces significant challenges going forward: growing income inequality and divergent access to wellness, the need for evidence-based wellness, and the tension between mandated wellness and personal freedom,” as the report explains it.
The institute’s full report is available online here.