2023 Wellness Real Estate Report reveals robust growth for wellness hotels

RLA Global’s fourth Wellness Real Estate Report, which delves into the latest trends in the wellness real estate sector, has revealed healthy growth in 2022 for hotels with a wellness offering.

The report showcases how wellness contributes to hotel revenue flows, operating costs and overall profits.

Originally published in 2020, the updated version contains new research and aims to provide actionable insights on how wellness may contributes to existing business or planned projects.

The report uses data from P&L benchmarking company HotStats to evaluate the performance of 2,600 hotels worldwide.

Key takeaways from the 2023 Wellness Real Estate Report include:

• Revenue at wellness hotels rose sharply as demand rebounded, despite economic difficulties
• Hotels with major wellness offerings outperformed those with minor wellness offerings in both revenue and occupancy. Minor is defined as those generating less than $1 million (£786,000) or 10% of total revenue from wellness and leisure
• Guest spending was highest at hotels with major wellness offerings – defined as those generating more than $1 million or 10% of total revenue from wellness and leisure
• Hotels with major wellness offerings drove higher revenue per occupied room – $85 per occupied room compared to just $4 for those without wellness

App-based wellness offerings

“The stand out trends are branded residences, community-based wellness and technology,” said RLA Global’s CEO, Roger Allen.

“These will continue to significantly impact wellness real estate and provide development and operational teams with a plethora of experiences that can ultimately broaden the service offering, strengthen guest engagement and improve overall performance.”

The report states hotel guests are increasingly using in-room TVs for wellness.

Another trend noted by the report is the growth in apps for fitness, wellness and health, and how these are impacting wellness offerings.

“Whatever approach hotel owners and operators take to adapt to changing technology trends, the increasing use of mobile apps for wellness purposes is something they will need to take into account going forwards,” added Simon Saunders, VP of strategic health and wellness.

“An excellent year for profitability”

“Energy costs, operational labour costs and guest supplies in particular challenged hoteliers to focus on efficiency,” said Michael Grove, CEO of HotStats.

“Whilst this meant resorts and wellness offering became a lot more challenging to manage, experiential demand drove guest spend, resulting in what was an excellent year from a profitability point of view.”

Hotels with wellness offerings were in general supported by the overall recovery of the global hotel market in 2022, despite increased inflation and difficulties caused by the war in Ukraine.

“Although hospitality is still in recovery mode, the wellness industry is going from strength to strength, which may support a fairly positive market outlook,” concluded Allen.

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