There is a trend towards the merging of healthcare, (science and medicine) and wellness, (self-care, holistic practices and prevention). Once competing, now becoming complementary.
The pandemic has led to a revision of the value of both disciplines and on how they can be better integrated, dawning a new era in these fields, converging to a new model of health wellness.
This new merger sees wellness integrated with a scientific formula that is based upon established data and the creation of new standards. Healthcare, on the other hand, embraces aspects of wellness and includes a more holistic attitude, becoming less sterile but more prevention-led and curative.
This collaboration is in evidence with developments in medical spas where medical and wellness is converging into larger, integrative resorts focused on combined medical wellness. Currently, they are positioned for the high-spend market.
Integrative, sophisticated medical-wellness resorts are in situ in various pockets of the global and are expanding due to the trend in consumers seeking a broader choice of medical technologies and disciplines under one roof. The pandemic has also influenced the creation of new treatments. These centre around diagnostics and advanced testing to include cardiovascular, respiratory, hormone, nutrition/microbiome, DNA and epigenetics.
There is a growing demand for personalised medical and wellness programmes created from advanced testing technologies and results which are backed on scientific evidence. And the consumer expects to leave resorts with take-home “lifestyle” health adaptations based on treatments and diagnostics received.
European pioneering medical wellness resorts in Europe include Sha Wellness Clinic in Spain, The Lanserhof in Austria and Germany, Bürgenstock’s Waldhotel and the Chenot in Switzerland.
The concept of integrative medical wellness is growing with new developments around the world. Next year sees Tri Vananda, opening in Thailand while RAKxa, launched recently near Bangkok, which combines doctors, medical diagnostic testing with comprehensive wellness therapies. In the UAE Zoya Health & Wellbeing Resort is set to open its doors in September. New openings in Europe have included Palazzo Fiuggi Wellness Medical Retreat, located near Rome where the focus is on fusing advanced medical diagnostics with a range of wellness disciplines.
Swiss retreat operator Chenot, whose Chenot Method has blended medical and wellness approaches for almost 50 years, is expanding its brand with the Chenot Palace Weggis on Lake Lucerne which opened in 2020 and a new Chenot medical-wellness centre at One&Only’s brand-new Portonovi Resort in Montenegro. In relation to the rise of ‘health wellness’ as a trend, Dr. George Gaitanos, Chief Operating Officer and Scientific Director, Chenot Group adds:
“The perspective for healthy living is changing and the focus is shifting from the quantity to the quality of life. However, while everyone agrees that the absence of illness is one part of being healthy, it does not indicate if one is in a state of wellness. Healthy living does require interventions from a lifestyle perspective, in which efforts are not motivated by a desire to avoid disease, but rather by a desire to enhance successful existence. We are in good health and very likely feeling well when our body, mind, and soul work harmoniously and transmit us in a deep sense of peace and happiness. Our daily living, life events and lifestyle choices, subjective and multidimensional, produce different types and amounts of negative and positive signals within the body. These signals make an impact on our level of ‘Health Wellness’. For living better and for longer, we need to assess, prioritise and integrate our dominant lifestyle inputs with our ability to convert them into health wellness outcomes for our body and mind.”