Health
The bn-dollar business of getting your life back
When Apoorva Addepalli flew to Thailand in March, sightseeing was not on the cards. Hyrox was. Addepalli, who works in marketing for Puma in Bengaluru and has been an athlete all her life, decided to do her third Hyrox race outside India. A suggestion to people at her gym snowballed until 20 were heading to Bangkok together. They landed, rested, raced—and earned their holiday. Their Thailand holiday wasn’t spent horizontal beside a pool, sipping cocktails. Addepalli and her buddies headed to Phuket to explore fitness: MMA and training “boxes”, workouts, healthy food, massages, naps and walks. “You are not optimising for tourism,” she says. “Physically, you are tired, but mentally you are energised because you are meeting people, building a community, exploring something new.” It’s called a runcation—a holiday centred around a run—and joins a growing lexicon of wellness-travel portmanteaus: sleepcation, calmcation, glowcation. Behind the nomenclature lies a shift. For Addepalli, whose 20s were filled with hostel-to-hostel, sight-to-sight trips, travel now starts with one question: what do I want to get out of this holiday? For Mumbai consultant Amrita Chhabria, 43, the answer began with a “medical holiday” to the Jindal Naturecure Institute in Karnataka in 2018. It became her entryway to travelling to feel better. She spent seven days at Ananda in the Himalayas for her 40th birthday. Even on family holidays, she seeks local wellness practices. “I seek wellness practices actively and with intention on all holidays.” The bottom line: wellbeing is no longer something to make time for after sightseeing. It is the itinerary. Live Events TRAVEL WELL At the start of 2026, travel trend reports were already hailing it as the year of wellness travel. Booking.com’s Travel Predictions 2026, an online survey of adults who plan to travel in the next 12-24 months, found that 87% of Indian travellers are motivated to travel for personal wellness, while 91% say wellness influences their choice of destination. It also pointed to the rise of “glowcation”, with 93% open to skincare-focused getaways. The report also highlighted “Hushed Hobbies”, while Hilton’s 2026 outlook called a similar shift “Hushpitality”: travellers seeking nature, quiet and slower pursuits. “Wellness is becoming a part of more personalised and experience-led travel, whether through dedicated wellness experiences or simply spending time in nature and pursuing quieter interests,” says Santosh Kumar, regional head, South Asia, Booking.com. According to Skyscanner’s Travel Trends 2027—a survey of 2,000 Indians combined with its search insights—91% of travellers are drawn to wellness-focused stays. Behind the trend is a familiar list of modern complaints: poor sleep, always-on work, digital overload, metabolic concerns, stress and an overstimulated nervous system. Travellers want more out of their time. And wellness facilities are stepping up. Ciara O’Shea, chief commercial director at Tulah Clinical Wellness in Keralam, dates the change to two waves: the pandemic, and the mainstreaming of wearables, glucose monitors and longevity hacks around 2023-24. She says what guests ask today is noticeably different: “A few years ago they wanted a pillow menu, now they want to understand their sleep architecture. Where they once asked for a juice cleanse, they now want gut, liver and metabolic markers assessed. Silence used to be a pleasant add-on; today it is requested as nervous-system regulation.” The larger change, she adds, is that people are seeking solutions to take home. MY KIND OF HOLIDAY Mitesh Jain, founder of Mandeha, a travel psychology firm that helps clients align itineraries with intention, says the new traveller seeks results from recreation. He says wellness travel works in three parts: before, during and after. “For travellers who can afford any destination, ‘where’ stops being interesting. ‘Why’ becomes the only question that matters.” The ‘why’ differs for most. Fitness structures the travel plans of Addepalli, who is now eyeing a Hyrox in Vietnam, while her friend recently returned from a yoga retreat in Kazakhstan. Burnout took communications entrepreneur Nasreen Patel to Bali alone, where days revolved around classes, swimming, meals and markets. “Going by myself meant my day ran fully on my own clock. Having zero responsibilities to anyone else completely changes how you unwind.” Chhabria prefers a retreat routine: “I just enjoy not being needed or deciding what next.” Gurgaon entrepreneur Aman Dhall decompresses through three-four solo getaways a year, often returning to the same Airbnb in Dharamshala. “As an entrepreneur, everything becomes work. Everyone has an expectation from you,” he says. “For me, all these trips where I can be an unknown are wellness breaks.” RESTING OVER ROAMING The Global Wellness Institute, which came out with its first Global Wellness Tourism Economy report in 2013, says wellness tourism is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the larger wellness economy. Global wellness-tourism spending hit $893.9 billion in 2024, 36% above pre-pandemic levels, and is projected to reach $1.38 trillion by 2029. Wellness real estate, meanwhile, more than doubled from $225 billion in 2019 to $584 billion in 2024. Luxury wellness properties say the guest is now younger, better informed and with a clearer health goal. Ananda in the Himalayas has seen people in their 30s and early 40s arrive with fatigue, low immunity, tired joints and lifestyle-related disorders. Its Indian bookings grew by 15% y-o-y, with holistic detox and stress management being top-selling programmes. Luxury wellness is borrowing the language not just of hospitality but medicine, performance and prevention: sleep, metabolic health, diagnostics, burnout recovery, women’s health and longevity. At Atmantan Wellness Centre near Pune, 70% of its guests are between 40 and 65 years. “The traveller now comes wanting a baseline, plan and measurable result,” says founder Nikhil Kapur. Sleep is now a stated goal for nearly 15% guests, up from virtually nil a few years ago. Women arrive with concerns around PCOS, thyroid, perimenopause and bone health; men are coming in earlier, before lifestyle-health reports become alarming. Guests also arrive with heart rate variability metrics and sleep scores. “They also come with concerns on how to hold on to the neuromuscular strength needed for daily activities like getting up from the floor or climbing stairs,” says Kapur. Atmantan responded with Bodh Kaaya, a neuromuscular facility. Programmes start at `40,200 a night for single occupancy and range from three nights to several weeks; its longest-staying guest last year spent 92 nights there. At Tulah Clinical Wellness, the approach goes even deeper into diagnostics. MRI, DEXA and CT scans are available on site. Its programmes draw on genomics, microbiome and metabolic profiles, ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, nutrition, psychological therapies and regenerative treatments. O’Shea says people have moved away from the generic hospitality term “package” to “journeys”. At the centre, these start at $1,600 per person per night. At Six Senses Vana in Dehradun, 70-80% of guests arrive with a clear wellness objective, says general manager Jaspreet Singh. Sleep, detox and weight management now sit beside mindful menopause, cycle support, stress relief hiking and ayurvedic prenatal and postnatal care. “We see wellness travel becoming more specific and more personal,” he says. “What will shape the next few years is a move away from wellness as a broad label towards personal intention.” Globally, the conversation is moving beyond generic detox, with neurowellness, women-specific longevity and an “over-optimisation backlash” emerging as trends. Radhika Khanijo, founder of luxury travel firm Welgrow Travels, sees the change in client briefs. “Five years ago, wellness travel was about relaxation, spa, yoga and a few days away from the routine. Today, the brief is increasingly around stress recovery, sleep, longevity and digital detox.” Clients are prepared to commit 7, 14, or 21 days. “Luxury wellness is moving away from visible indulgence to things that are scarce in everyday life—privacy, silence, nature, time and personalisation,” says Khanijo. “The new luxury is having exactly what you need, rather than simply having more.” TAKE HOME However, not everyone wants the resort route. Bengaluru-based strategy risk manager Nishtha Sikka has watched friends return glowing from week-long retreats only to fall back into their old routines. “Personally, it sounds unsustainable,” she says. Whatever your wellness pick, Jain says mindful approach matters: “If not approached mindfully, it’s just escape travel with better food.” Aprajita Mukherjee, a marketing professional, chose another route. In 2021, she did a 10-day vipassana course. She has since returned for shorter courses, underwent panchakarma and sought spiritual encounters while travelling. In Ladakh, she met with a monk to understand the monastic life. For her, such travel offers a glimpse of “alternative ways of being”. Her travel intention is simple: “Is this as good as it gets—and is there something I can take into my own life?” Lifestyle and foundational-medicine expert Luke Coutinho says, “There’s a bigger question here. Why have we built lives that we keep needing to escape from? When a holiday is the only time you sleep peacefully, slow down, or feel like yourself, it’s worth looking at your everyday life.” A change of scene creates reset, but daily habits decide whether it lasts. He says: “A seven-day holiday can’t make up for 358 days of neglect.” The harder journey is not taking the wellness route but carrying it home. Add as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
Economic Times·5 hours ago·8 min read
