The Global Wellness Summit (GWS) will hold its milestone 20th-anniversary event at the Angsana Laguna Phuket in Thailand from November 10-13, with the theme, “The Science, Art and Soul of Wellness.”
Asia-Pacific’s wellness market has reached $2 trillion for the first time, and its recent 9.3% annual growth (2024) makes it tied with Europe as the global wellness market growth “star.”
The agenda will tackle the question, “Why Asia, why now?”, with speakers discussing not only the biggest opportunities across Asia’s fast-growing wellness economy, but how Asia’s unique wellness approaches and why Asia is key to understanding the future of wellness.
The focus will be on Asia’s distinct wellness travel, spa, beauty, traditional medicine, wellness real estate, architecture and design, and policy sectors. Experts will share lessons learned from South Korea’s astounding K-Beauty boom, where a million people a year travel there for aesthetic services and with K-beauty products now an $11-billion-plus export market. Hospitality leaders will also explore how Asian brands are creating a new future for wellness travel, one with a deep focus on social connection, sustainability, and the arts and creativity.
“Asia is the primary growth engine for the future of travel, luxury and wellness because of the unmatched expansion of its middle class and wealth creation, infrastructure investments, economic resilience and scale, and rapid technology advancement,” said Cathy Feliciano-Chon, a co-chair of this year’s conference and managing partner at FINN Partners Greater China. “It also faces many challenges, with declining fertility rates and a ‘silver tsunami’. Asia is at the nexus of both these opportunities and challenges.”
Asia’s Standout Wellness Markets & Growth Leaders
According to Global Wellness Institute (GWI), Asia was one of the slowest-growing regional wellness markets from 2021-2023, but it’s now surging back, expanding a world-leading 9.3% in 2024, to reach $2 trillion – 74% larger than its pre-pandemic size.
Wellness Tourism: Asia’s $215 billion wellness tourism market has been by far the biggest recent global gainer: growing 31% in 2024, the year it surpassed Europe for the largest number of wellness trips.
Four of the top five recent annual growth leaders are in Asia: India (57%), Thailand (36%), South Korea (36%), and China (35%). Asian hospitality brands – including Thailand’s Kamalaya and Chiva Som, India’s Ananda in the Himalayas, Bali’s COMO Shambhala Estate, and The Farm at San Benito in the Philippines – have shaped modern wellness for decades.
Traditional & Complementary Medicine: GWI predicts traditional and complementary medicine will be the second- fastest -growing wellness market through 2029 (11% annually), and Asia is the goliath market at $379 billion (three times larger than the next regional market and representing an extraordinary 63% of global spending).
Healthy Eating, Nutrition, & Weight Loss: Asia is the world’s largest market at $347 billion, and it’s also the biggest recent global growth gainer, expanding 7.7% in 2024.
Wellness Real Estate: Asia is now the world’s largest market ($350 billion), clocking powerful 26% annual growth from 2019 to 2025. Seven of the top 20 wellness real estate markets are in Asia, including #2 globally, China ($218 billion), #4 Australia ($38 billion), #6 Japan ($34 billion), and #11 India ($20.5 billion).
