The Global Wellness Summit (GWS) today released its top nine wellness trends for 2021, presenting the new directions the organization believes will have the most meaningful impact on the multitrillion-dollar global wellness industry. The trends were presented at a virtual press event attended by thousands worldwide.
Experts identified nine future wellness trends: from Hollywood jumping into wellness to the rise of spiritual architecture/design to adding “more color to wellness” to a new future for immune health—that stops “boosting” and starts balancing.
Forecasting trends in the fast-evolving wellness space is daunting every year. In 2020, we experienced a global pandemic, economic meltdown, racial injustice, polarizing politics, and a mental wellness crisis that changed every aspect of human life. The pandemic made wellness radically more important to people overnight, while COVID-19 exposed the terrible human cost for not controlling chronic, underlying conditions, radically strengthening the case for preventative wellness. At the same time, there was accelerated fatigue with a wellness industry overly focused on elitist, hyper-trendy, evidence-free wellness solutions—which suddenly feel “so 2019.”
Wellness today is at a watershed moment. The trends report reflects how wellness is poised to take a bigger seat at the health care table (see “The Self-Care Revolution” trend). It predicts a future industry that will be more inclusive, accessible and affordable (see the “Adding Color to Wellness,” “The Entertainment Industry Jumps into Wellness,” and “Just Breathe!” trends). How it will basically “get real” and more evidence-based (see “The Future of Immune Health: Stop Boosting, Start Balancing”)—and tackle tougher, more crucial human pain-points (see” “Money Out Loud: Financial Wellness Is Finding Its Voice”). And the report also predicts how wellness will continue to rewrite vast industries, from travel, to architecture and design, to the meetings industry.
This is the only wellness forecast based on the insights of hundreds of top executives of wellness companies, economists, doctors, investors, academics and technologists (from dozens of nations) that gathered in person and virtually at the recent Summit to debate where wellness was headed—making for a uniquely informed, global set of predictions.
View more info or purchase the report here.