Ingo Schweder, CEO of GOCO Hospitality, participated as a speaker at the Wellness Travel Symposium hosted by the Global Wellness Institute at the Arabian Travel Market, which was held at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre on Tuesday April 25, 2017. The symposium was organised and moderated by Susie Ellis, Chairwoman of the Global Wellness Institute.
This year’s event brought together high calibre speakers in the wellness hospitality field, including Ingo Schweder from GOCO Hospitality, Dr Franz Linser – CEO Linser Hospitality, Anne Dimon – CEO Travel to Wellness, Helen Greenhow – Product Director Wellbeing Escapes, Andrew Gibson – Vice President Well Being Luxury Brands and Paul Hawko – Director of Talise Spa Operations.
The symposium addressed the increasing demand of wellness tourism products worldwide, and particularly in the MENA region. Growing by more than 6% annually to $8.3 billion in wellness tourism revenues, this number was only topped by a growth in spa market revenue of 10% – twice as fast as the average worldwide rate of 4%.
From 2013 to 2015, global wellness tourism experienced continued strong growth of 10.6%, even though the worldwide economy shrank by -3.6%.
In addition, the other emerging trend highlighted by the symposium was the growth of wellness communities and lifestyle real estate, which combine hospitality and wellness residence concepts and are now a $119 billion market globally and $500 million market in the MENA region.
GOCO Hospitality purchased 85-acre Glen Ivy Hot Springs in Southern California and is expanding it with additional wellness real estate anchored by a 125-room GOCO wellness retreat.
