Tech, Travel, and Twang!
Come for the thoughts, stay for the tea. The co-founders of Destination Innovate, Jennifer Barbee and Kristen Cruz brew up the latest industry tea every Tuesday - diving into simmering issues, hot trends, and special guests. Grab a cup and let’s spill the tea!
Tech, Travel, and Twang!
2025: The Wellness Travel Era
Can wellness travel redefine how we experience our holidays? Join us on Tech, Travel and Twang as we explore the transformative trends shaping wellness tourism, promising not just relaxation but a journey to mental and physical rejuvenation. As we gear up for the holiday season, discover how the post-pandemic travel boom is pushing both leisure and business travelers to prioritize well-being in their itineraries. We'll share insights from the Global Wellness Institute and delve into wellness travel's impact on the tourism workforce.
We're challenging the old perceptions of wellness travel being reserved for only luxury retreats. Discover how this sector is expanding to include a myriad of experiences like forest bathing and reconnecting with nature. We discuss the necessity of personalized wellness journeys that cater to an array of needs, emphasizing the shift towards trips aimed at slowing down and recharging. Destinations are now crafting unique, inspirational experiences that transcend traditional categories, ensuring that wellness is no longer a luxury but an essential component of travel.
And let's not forget the primal allure of reconnecting with nature—think glamping, campfires, and "Blue Mind Escapes." We explore how engaging in primal skills and aligning with circadian rhythms can enhance our sense of well-being, particularly when dealing with the rigors of travel. Our conversation takes a playful turn as we share anecdotes about household language etiquette and tease the exciting release of an upcoming white paper on wellness travel trends. Join us for a lively discussion that promises to inspire your next journey towards wellness.
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The Tech, Travel, and Twang Podcast is hosted by Co-Founders, Kristen Cruz and Jenn Barbee with Destination Innovate. Learn More! https://destinationinnovate.com/about/
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Well, hi, welcome back to Tech Traveling Twang, my co-host, christian Cruz. Hey, kristen, how are you? Hey Jen, I'm good. How are you? Hey Jen, I'm good. As we're gearing up for the holidays and doing the opposite of what we'll be talking about today, let's talk about wellness, before we get super chubbed up on turkey and dressing.
Speaker 2:I love that, I love that, but still. But I think what's important in that is that we're still planning to do wellness related things.
Speaker 1:We're not just planning to stuff our faces right Like there's other things we're going to do for our mental health, but look, you know, that's what makes us well but I'm really excited, as we're, as we've been talking about this for ourselves personally and professionally, and just seeing the trends of the travelers, like I'm really and if we go back and listen to our podcast, we kind of talk about wellness and mental wellness and professional wellness quite a bit. So I'm really happy to let's just teeth it in right now before our white paper comes out about our trend predictions for wellness travel.
Speaker 2:Yes, a lot of the industry and a lot of the trends that we're seeing going into 2025 are really predicting and we're coming off of an election, you know so this is extremely top of mind for us. It has been we talked about that in our last podcast for us and has been we talked about that in our last podcast but the predictions are are absolutely that wellness and your mental wellbeing is an absolute focus for you when you're traveling, no matter how long you're going, no matter where you're going, no matter how long you plan to be there. Um, there are there's so many things under the wellness category that touch how travelers are planning their trips and just what's important, and even outside of just. We talk a lot about trends for the leisure traveler, but we're hitting and talking about planners, planning conventions and meetings and what's meaningful to them and their attendees, and we're talking about, you know, people who work and live and work in this industry because, let's be honest, we're a hardworking bunch of people in this tourism industry.
Speaker 1:But what it?
Speaker 2:means for us when we're meeting and brainstorming and understanding it, and so it has been such a top of mind for us. We've been leaning into this a lot in our other topics, but this is the time of year to really really start talking and leaning into some of the things that are really important.
Speaker 1:You know there's so much conversation around that for a lot of reasons, to travel. Now, of course I'm so glad we quit saying the words pre-pandemic, but of course we're hitting records again and travel that's leisure travel, that's business travel and so forth. With that comes outside of anything else going on in our society comes the bad part of travel, which is transportation. So already when you're thinking about doing a trip, transportation sucks. The airports suck, the airlines suck, the Ubers suck, the rental cars suck. Like it is stressful to the max I had a couple of kids in tow, you know and it becomes a very high.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Of course, on the other side, you know, we're ready for not just, maybe, drinks by the pool and some relaxation, but some actual, meaningful rejuvenation from even the transportation trauma we just had.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and here's the way that we're thinking about it as an industry, but just thinking about, when we talk about wellness, what that ultimately means. So the Global Wellness Institute distinguishes between two categories of wellness travel. Right, there's your primary wellness travel, and primary is essentially those that plan a trip with wellness being the motivation for their trip. They're going with that solely in mind, so they're thinking about that's how they're planning it, that's the itinerary, that's really what they're focused on. There's another part of that, which is secondary wellness travel, and that is where wellness is an add-on to a trip.
Speaker 2:It's the there are things that you do that resets that mental well-being throughout your trip. You know you may go do a whole bunch of adventure thing, but you're gonna catch me out by the pool later, you know. Or, um, you know I may like do one day where I'm really like focused on a whole bunch of stuff I got to get done, but then I might like take a day just at the hotel or at the short term rental and just, you know, veg out all day, you know. So there's two kind of areas that we really think about, and when you add up a primary and a secondary, that's basically everybody right, like you're either planning to go and focus on your well-being or you're planning to go and do something else where well-being is still a focus. But isn't well-being a focus for the majority of us? Is kind of my point, I guess. So this we're really talking about a big movement here in the way that we're shaping well-being, how we attract these travelers.
Speaker 1:It is, and I think it's just some of the the nomenclature and the words that get mixed up. When you hear wellness, people think you know it has to be yoga retreat somewhere in Bali, you know, with yogis and all of that. And it's just, that is such an old, small way of thinking about it. So wellness may not be the word that's always used, but I think health to mental health is obviously a big topic of conversation, but you're right, it really covers everybody. Now, at least from a us travel population audience. You know, we just talked to one of our friends a little earlier. He was talking about the speaker he met from germ, was it? They said they consider rejuvenation a right. So this is like specifically for our domestic travelers. This is, we are opening up to a new era of thinking about and using the terminology wellness in our tourism plans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've said it so many times on this podcast even and we've just been focusing on the travel aspect like travel is not a luxury, it's a necessity, right, like people are prioritizing travel, like it's you've got to check the box, no matter where you go, where you do, but that's becoming more and more the norm with with your what, with wellness in general, your, your mental well-being, your physical well-being it's a priority. It's not just a luxury, you know, to be able to go to that spa thing and it's really like you said, it's not, you know, it's not checking into the four seasons and doing two days at the spa. That's not what we as a society consider wellness anymore.
Speaker 1:It really is looking at things that help you recenter and refocus and check your own mental well-being and I think I think they're all getting recategorized a lot because so many different people are traveling in very hyper personalized ways, which is where you know this is also not just a check the box here. Okay, I've got a wellness tourism destination because I've checked all these boxes down, like I just don't think we think like that anymore and society doesn't think like that anymore, so it's hyper personalized. So I would say, like what you mentioned, like a four seasons go in. You know you're paying three, four hundred bucks for manny petty kind of thing. That's maybe more on a luxury self-pampering. We call that bougie travel.
Speaker 2:Maybe, but not necessarily wellness travel it's a category listen, it's a category of wellness.
Speaker 2:You got your bougie travelers okay, and that's what they're gonna and that does actually bring up another stat, like the other stat that was really, really, I think, um impactful from the global wellness institute is that wellness tourists, those that either factor in it this is almost everybody right, like this is, you know, those that factor wellness as a primary category or a secondary category on their trip spent 41% more than the average traveler in 2022, 41% more like it's not. And there's so many things that you can do wellness right that don't cost a ton of money, like when you think about, you know the outdoor aspect and you think about the natural resources that destinations have and things that you can go and kind of reset spiritually and just absorbing the sun and touching the grass, and that checks those boxes but may not necessarily cost you, like a trip to the spa would cost you but, you're still staying longer to enjoy those things.
Speaker 2:So you're hit. You're checking the more expensive, you know, or spending more on accommodations. You're, you're, you know you're. You're still consuming food, and maybe even better quality food. Since you're a little more health conscious and wellness is top of mind, you may be willing to spend more for a restaurant that serves higher quality food than you are going through the drive-through, you know, and picking up something that's convenient.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so there's so many.
Speaker 2:There's so many things, but the ways that I think and, like you said, what's super interesting about this whole thing, I think, why we are so there's so many layers to this is just what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what people consider to be that checking the box for wellness thing that they travel for there's so many categories and it's such an evolving thing that we don't talk about it the same way we did several years ago and destinations don't have to talk about it the same way as they did several years ago. It's not just giving a list of services your destination provides that check the wellness box. It's crafting inspiration and showing travelers the spaces that can check several different types of boxes for your wellness.
Speaker 1:They can, but I feel like destinations to this point have communicated to only a very small slice of this audience, an audience that is intentionally seeking this specific type of experience. The problem with that as I say this all the time you listen to these podcasts is that's selling a vitamin to people who want to take vitamins, but not everybody wants to take vitamins. You know and I hate to say the word painkiller, but it really is like what are you alleviating? We talk about wellness. Now, we aren't talking about just those who want to go on a yogi retreat and do you know big, fast and do big physical things? It may just be like you mentioned I just need to go touch some grass, I just need to do some forest bathing, I just need to do some sound bathing and get back out of my head from the craziness.
Speaker 2:I just think it's such a different thing and I worry that we categorize too too much well, I think the idea of a trip, just the general idea of a trip, is to go do things right, like it's to go experience something, it's to go do something.
Speaker 2:So when you mentally prepare for a trip, you're mentally prepared to like go, be active, like go do all the things, go experience this place and do a lot of things and be on the go. But over the last couple of years, like booking trips to intentionally slow down is a thing. Booking trips to go sleep, like a sleep trip, to go sit in your hotel or, let me sorry, lay down in your hotel or your rental or wherever it is that you're staying, and intentionally slow down, that's a thing. You know, that's a. You will spend money to go, not do as much. It may be in a whole different place, but that is intentional and it's a different type of trip, I guess, than you know, than what we typically see destinations promoting or wanting or really thinking their travelers are coming there to do like those things.
Speaker 1:And I think they would. They would see a tip if the travelers knew there was something like that to do, because people, you know, if you go out on the street and ask 10 people you know what a sleepcation is, a couple would figure it out. But it's not like it is such an average word yet it's something that's happening People are doing. They're going to sleep and rest but they may not be connecting with that nomenclature. But there are very excited about. Kristen and I have put together 10 trends we see coming up from a leisure perspective in wellness travel and there's just a couple of them we want to tease on today. Kristen, what's your fave?
Speaker 2:Oh, there's so many that are my fave. I think probably the one that I like the most and I think would be a really interesting conversation is probably you said forest bathing already, which I know. When I heard forest bathing I was like, oh, what do forest bathing? I was like, oh, what do we? How do we? What do we do? Like, what does this mean? Um. So I definitely want to talk about that, yes, um, but I also really like the, um, the idea of the rewilding retreats.
Speaker 1:I thought that one was. That's so interesting to me. So because we become overly digitized and openly urbanized, we've lost some of those primal skills and at first when I saw it I was like, is this some prepper stuff? But no, not at all. It's very. It really is, with like our rhythms, it's like primal movements, it's survival instincts. It's's survival instincts, it's foraging, it's connecting back to the earth out of our very busy urban and digital environments yeah, I've seen this.
Speaker 2:yeah, there's a group that we have locally and I've seen uh guys post in there like they do like guy trips, and it's like, yeah, yeah, we're going to go and we're just going to be in the wild and we're going to have a great time, and it's like so you're going to go pitch a tent and find your food in the record.
Speaker 2:I mean, but it's a niche, right, For some people. They want that experience and they feel like they're going to learn something, and maybe, again, they want that experience and they feel like they're going to learn something, and maybe again, like it's intentionally slowing down and focusing on, like the, the bare minimum things that you need to survive, right. It's like leaving behind all the things that are just noise that we think we can't live without. But we could. We could absolutely live without.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I love that one because also I'm a big sucker for you know a campfire and immediately I'm like why don't we? Just this is just like Girl Scout camp, boy Scout camp, redone, like we learned these things.
Speaker 2:Yes, but that's where I feel like for women it's more of glamping. Like you and I, we want to like a fire pit, a nice fire, right, but make it a glamp site, not't like maybe not in the middle of the forest with a tent, but maybe some air conditioning although I could still start a fire with a couple of sticks and a stone, I'm sure you can.
Speaker 1:I love that one. Okay, so here's one of my faves the blue mind escapes, yes yes this is something we're going to test out together. When you're here for our business slash, family slash holiday next week is, do some of those sound baths on floats on the water. So a blue mind escape is basically getting in that water one way or another connected to water. It could be ocean water, it could be pool water, it could be underwater meditating, which I'm very curious how that works, like I don't know that I want to do?
Speaker 2:I would do over the water meditating, like put me on a float and let, but underwater, I'm not sure I'm in the mindset of meditating. I am, and it depends on what body of water you're putting me in.
Speaker 1:There's a couple of resorts popping up. I believe I can't remember exactly where they are, I believe outside of Indonesia maybe, anyway, and they're just literally pods for Blue Mind Escape. So they're like in the middle of the ocean and there's like this it looks space age too. It's like this pole that comes up and then there's like this pod that you can stay in resort wise. Like I don't know about that. I'm still iffy about the resorts that have the glass bottom over, just barely like off the shore. I could not be at the middle of the ocean.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's definitely a niche because you do have those with the anxiety. I feel like that probably would not be able to take full advantage. But floating on the top like a pool, like a salt pool, that's a huge thing. You see a lot of that happening on social media and it's and it's essentially just as simple as like getting on a float, you know on top of you know in a pool or in a body of water, and being able to like put something over your eyes, cover your body, stay warm, but just like escape for a minute and feel that, mimic that flow of waves in some way, like mimicking water flowing. Maybe that sets something up in your body for a different type of flow, but that that would be really interesting. I would love to do that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's funny you say flow Cause. I think that brings to the other one we want to kind of hit today, which is your circadian rhythm and how circadian travel is becoming part of that Cause. Both of those we just hit really do hit on something that is very big about listening to your body and being more primal and more connected. But you know, it's kind of a a buzz term for those recovering from jet lag. But kristen and I see so many more applications to just getting in touch with your rhythm. You know, um, getting in touch with your personal rhythm, being able to. That's why sunshine is so important to us, why we get depressed in the winter. Sleep when you need to sleep, eat when you need to eat, not just because there's a, you know, a clock that tells you to do so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause we, you have your normal clock, but you also have that internal clock which you have to be mindful of. You know, and we all know, over the past few years there's been so much more technology and so much more study into the light systems that our bodies respond to red light, blue light, all these different lights, um, therapies that are that do different things in our bodies, and so it's extremely important, especially when you're, you know, once it well, if you're traveling quite a bit, if you're doing a lot of international traveling, or if you're, you know, doing a lot of commuting, you know, via plane, for whatever reason, a lot of work, travel. But it's also, I think, really important this time of year, when you know we have less daylight in general, it gets darker a lot earlier, but we, as you know, we have less daylight in general, it gets darker a lot earlier, but we, as you know, we go into a seasonal something and it affects a lot of people, um, and there's some, yeah, and there's some chefs.
Speaker 1:But I like about that too is there's some chefs that basically offer circadian food too, and food is a a medicine definitely massive trend. You're going to see this more and more in, you know, in tourism and in this wellness movement.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's huge. I think social just just social media in general the past couple of years have really brought to light a lot of the things that we do to our bodies, that we consume, things that we just kind of just weren't top of mind for us. All of a sudden now it's like wow, I really need to change the way I eat. I really need to like think about food a lot differently and that it is its own medicine, is it is the rawest, best form of medicine and can heal so many things in our bodies. But we just we we haven't really looked at it like that as much as we do now, as a whole human body, like we think about it so differently especially in the U?
Speaker 1:S, so dialed into that commitment after November 27th.
Speaker 2:Wait, isn't Thanksgiving, November 28th? Oh wait, I think it might be.
Speaker 1:Okay, thanksgiving, november 28th. Oh wait, I think it might be Okay. Obviously, my circadian rhythm might be a little off right now, so just flow with me. You don't have to edit this.
Speaker 2:But right after Thanksgiving you go into, you know, you go into December. That's when the best desserts are available. I mean, that's Christmas. It's the best chocolate. See, I'm a sugar person and so this is my season. We call this the bulk season, where we bulk up a little bit, but we'll lose it, it'll be fine.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's the food, is the medicine you need during that time. It's nostalgia, it's connecting to family members who aren't here anymore.
Speaker 2:And that, oh, that brings me to another topic that I wanted to cover is thinking about wellness outside of the activities and the things that kind of are meaningful to that, but just the habits of wellness travelers and food and cultural experiences is really important. Being able to try new things with new people, sample new, you know recipes, food in terms of like cooking classes and things like that the activities of wellness travelers are really dynamic.
Speaker 1:Like it really. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what I'm hearing, what I hear you saying, is they're very demure, very mindful you can totally tell we have young kids because we're like the moms that like try to repeat everything we hear make it make sense.
Speaker 1:I had to slide that one in because if I say in my house house, my kids are home, I'll say I'll hear. Stop saying that, don't say that ever again.
Speaker 2:And when I tell my kids are you didn't, you shouldn't have started it, you shouldn't have started it. I don't know, you started it and we're running with it. So, anyway, I love this conversation.
Speaker 1:Cannot wait. Follow along for our white paper to drop somewhere around the holidays, because good reading for that part of it and wellness travel is, I think it's going to be just more and more topic of conversation. Uh, right alongside, I would say, a double runner to ai this year yeah, I would say absolutely, yeah wonderful, fun chat. Kristen, I guess I'll see you next week. I'll see you next week. Bye.
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