Show Clients You Care by Suggesting Wellness Travel

Interest in wellness vacations has gone mainstream with a majority of North Americans saying they’d like to take a vacation focused primarily on healthy activities, according to a recent survey.

In the Spafinder Wellness 365 survey, 62% of 1,000 respondents said they’d like to take a “healthy” vacation, while 20% said they have already taken a wellness-oriented vacation.

Spafinder Wellness 365, a marketing company for the spa and wellness industry, conducted the online survey, one of its periodic looks at consumer preferences, last month.

It’s more than selling
The survey findings hold powerful implications for travel agents, according to Beth McGroaty, Spafinder’s director of research.

“[Selling] healthy vacations can transform agents from people who just sell, to people who are concerned about others’ health and well-being,” she said. “It makes agents advocates for well-being.

“You’re inquiring about [clients’] wants and needs, so it doesn’t feel like selling.”

Asking the right questions
The findings demonstrate that consumers have a deep interest in integrating healthy components into a vacation, said McGroaty.

Are travelers’ interested in taking yoga or healthy cooking classes? Do they want to snorkel or do other active pursuits? Do they want to experience nature?

“These are the kinds of questions agents should be asking their leisure travelers,” she said.

“When you ask these questions, it sounds like you’re taking care of people. You’re creating a vacation where they are positively transformed and feel better.”

Mental rejuvenation
A surprising finding from the survey was the emphasis on the stress- and anxiety-reducing effects of healthy vacations, according to McGroaty.

“I thought the top benefits of a wellness vacation would be more physical, for example, losing weight,” she said.

“But an overwhelming three-quarters of respondents said these vacations really impacted their mental health. They helped them re-set mentally.”

‘Stress epidemic’
McGroaty called Americans’ vacation time “a precious resource” that’s in shockingly short supply.

She cited Expedia’s 2013 Vacation Deprivation study which found that Americans’ failed to take an average of four vacation days out of the 14 a year they receive.

The French, in comparison, get 30 vacation days a year – and use each and every one of them. They are the global leaders in time off.

“People in the U.S. have an amazingly small amount of vacation time,” said McGroaty. “Given our stress epidemic, healthy vacations are not just aspirational, they’re what people need.”

Back to nature
Consumers’ strong focus on nature experiences as part of well-being vacations was another interesting finding, McGroaty said.

“Nature and the outdoors were key components of their idea of healthy travel,” she said.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents ranked nature and the outdoors as important activities for a wellness vacation, behind healthy meals, which ranked as most important at 70%.

“While we think of programming like yoga classes, the nature aspect is significant,” McGroaty said. “When people think of healthy travel, they think nature, just being in nature whether it’s [the location of] a five-star resort or a national park.”