From technology to critical discussions around sustainability, eventing experiences have consistently been at the forefront of the latest global trends. Could wellness and well-being be the new norm, asks theplanner.guru?
Following another challenging year of living through a pandemic, there has been a stronger emphasis on aspects such as diversity, equality and inclusion as a key component within sustainability as well as health, safety and overall wellness. These core themes are taking centre stage during events, with well-being forming an overarching theme in these discussions.
Where are we seeing this?
Professor Lorenzo Fioramonti has been advocating a theory and practice that he calls ‘the wellbeing economy’ for more than a decade. Through his foundation and his work, he highlights the pitfalls of the human race’s obsession with economic growth and instead, encourages placing personal and ecological wellbeing at the centre of development policies for governments and industries. In a talk he delivered to the local events industry in March last year, Prof. Fioramonti used examples of how the wellbeing economy is the only way forward to achieving a truly sustainable and equitable future, as well as happier and healthier lives.
Within the broader travel and tourism sector, the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) notes that a boom in wellness tourism is on the horizon, predicting that wellness travel will be the fastest-growing wellness sector into 2025. GWI expects wellness travel to grow by 21% each year to reach US$1.1 trillion.
“I believe we need to transition towards a ‘well-being economy’, that is, an economy that improves social and ecological well-being, rather than an economy that undermines it by pursuing an obsolete paradigm of ‘growth’, as it has been the case over the past decades.”
Professor Lorenzo Fioramonti
A dedicated event platform
Each year, the Global Wellness Summit takes place during which the latest research and findings are discussed. Last year, trends that were identified included Hollywood looking at how they can best promote wellness as well as architecture that understands the physical connection between people and buildings in which we work, live and play.
The 2021 Global Wellness Summit was hosted in Boston, USA and will take place this year in Tel Aviv, Israel from 30 October 2022-02 November 2022. Interested participants can register here.
