I was honored to be invited to speak at the general session at ISPA this year, and going around speaking at several events every year, I was truly impressed with their professionalism. Back stage there were make up artists (thank God!), coffee, great technicians that helped with my lost font on my presentation making it look like my 6-year old had made it.

Being a founding board member of the Global Spa & Wellness summit, myself and Mary Tabacchi (professor at Cornell) are responsible for collecting and tailoring the research each year and this was a summary with my analysis.

When it comes to fitness, I only need to say two words 

1. Personal Training
2. Functional fitness

And if you are not onto that yet, you need to get on the bandwagon fast.

Health and Wellness packaged food and beverage, there are two new words

1. Nutroceuticals – which is food and beverage with a purpose, for example “White tea for radiant skin”
2. Comseceuticals – is a suppment you take for stronger hair, brighter skin etc.

Health & Wellness package food is a USD 680 billion market, 10 times the spa industry and we have a huge opportunity to tap into this market. I found a couple of interesting companies trying to convince the spa market on the Expo, namely Forte Tea and FOHAÅFOH

When it comes to beauty, we find that women are starting to change beauty products more often depending on how well the skin care companies communicate benefits and if it also talks about anti-aging and organic, we are more likely to buy the product.

70% of women believe that beauty = happiness. Hey guys, we are not that complicated, make a woman feel beautiful and we are happy. Simple as that.

Now to the crown jewel. Every year the amazing Susie Ellis releases her top 10 trends for the coming years. The minute they are released they are broadcasted on television, blogs, twitter, magazines and news paper. It is an explosion of Susie’s trends world wide who everyone is talking about. I am not sure if she is spotting a trend or actually creating it, but the truth is that they are very much a reality 12 months later.

Working closely with Susie for the past 7 years on the GSWS board, I asked her if she didn’t want to give me a sneak preview of one of the trends to present – and she did! The trend that she predicts, and I wholeheartedly agree with from our own research, is that the traveler wants WELLNESS when staying at a hotel. Experience is great, but closer to their heart is sleeping really well, eating well, being able to enjoy great fitness offerings to stay fit and simply being well and there are several initiatives that are showing that hotels are catching on. One example is Even hotels www.evenhotels.com Check it out!

A little snippet from ISPA, you will probably hear more the coming weeks, a great event and fantastic people and a whole of sharing.

//Anna