A new traveler is born. He comes to supplant another who already had health and well-being at the center of his vacations and dedicated his weeks off to sleep cures, yoga and long meditation sessions. The new traveler goes further, his goals are ambitious and his language is sophisticated and complex: he talks about hormones, peptides and osteomolecular balance, he speaks with ease about alkaline nutrition and restorative therapies. He wants doctors to examine him and arranges his veins for analysis and all kinds of advanced diagnostic tests as long as they guarantee him the holy grail of longevity and cell rebirth.
Instead of traveling with a guide, she organizes her days around a busy schedule of medical appointments, lab tests, deep-tissue massages, and state-of-the-art therapies. Their meals are controlled by nutritionists, and their hours of sleep are measured by precise devices.
The new traveler is cultured and well-informed: before choosing a destination, they have read several scientific articles, consulted medical manuals, talked with specialists and, above all, with other travelers who feel renewed, energetically powerful, wanting to come back and with even more desire to recommend this new way of vacationing.
“It is my fourth time here. I have been coming here with my daughter since my husband died”, Luz, 89, confessed to me in the SHA Wellness Clinic restaurant. Before her, the miso soup for every breakfast, an essential part of the anti-inflammatory diet, which is one of the attractions of this place near Altea (Alicante), a luxury resort built on the top of a hill fifteen years ago and that it is one of the pioneering centers of wellness tourism. Breakfast does not include coffee in any of its varieties or bread. Luz resigns herself and looks at my plate to verify that the same regimen has been applied to me. Here the guests look at each other with suspicion and the waiters are incorruptible and are very well informed of the diet that each one should take. After breakfast, Luz has a pressotherapy session, and her daughter, a healthy aging consultation where they will measure her hormone levels.
When SHA started, there were hardly any places that took health tourism so seriously. Time has proved them right, and their business model is a global trend. It will soon open in Mexico and the United Arab Emirates.
According to a 2022 report by Grand View Research, a consultancy that studies business trends in the world, the global health and wellness tourism market could exceed one trillion dollars by 2030, with an annual growth rate of close to 10%. in the next nine years.
The change in the priorities of the travelers has varied the offer, and the luxury resorts look for technology and good doctors. Everyone invests to be the first to have the latest. SHA Wellness Clinic offers to sleep in the HOGO bed, with a graphite and silver mesh that promises to eliminate the radiation that the body has acquired during the day. According to its manufacturers, those who regularly sleep in it can delay aging up to a decade.
This summer, one of the great attractions offered by the Six Senses hotel in Eivissa is a week-long retreat with Dr. Mark Hyman at his RoseBar longevity clinic. Hyman is one of the great experts in functional medicine, among his patients are Gwyneth Paltrow and Bill Clinton. The experience includes therapy in a hyperbaric chamber to breathe pure oxygen in a pressurized capsule, cryotherapy and a DNA test to determine the speed at which people age from the length of their telomeres.
The ambition of these establishments, halfway between a five-star hotel and a high-end clinic, is to change the life of those who pass by, and to come back again. Change the way you eat, sleep, breathe, take medication, and ultimately live and age.
SHA Wellness Clinic has just added a sexual health unit to its offer of services. Their argument is that the WHO considers sexual function an essential part of a full life and a sign of good general health. It has acquired, among other technologies, shock waves to improve erectile dysfunction or fractionated CO2 laser for menopausal symptoms. The clinical interview protocol includes among the routine questions one about sexual satisfaction. "With the increase in life expectancy, sexual expectations also grow. If you reach 80 years with a lot of quality, it makes no sense to give up sexual activity at 60. Why resign yourself to living 20 years without sex?" argues Cinthya Molina, responsible for the new service.
