What is a Health and Wellness Spa?

“Wellness” is a relatively new word within the spa industry that’s shot up in popularity in the last couple of years. It has become a very convincing argument anyone can use against seeing a spa visit as a mere luxury – a cost that easily can be cut from your budget.

The concept of “wellness” refers to living in a state of optimal health, well-being and vitality. This includes everything from having a good diet, exercising regularly, and getting treatments like massage and bodywork that allows you to perform at your best and live a great and healthy life. 

Wellness enriches our life and makes it more enjoyable where regular visits to a health and wellness spa can become an important part of a person’s wellness plan.

The difference between a Health and Wellness Spa and a Resort Spa

Resort spas traditionally offer spa treatments along some sort of leisure activities such as golf, tennis, swimming or similar, usually taking advantage of their location (e.g. skiing, hiking). More often than not, everything is a la carte, in comparison to a wellness spa which often takes the “all-inclusive” approach.

But, the lines between a resort spa and a wellness spa have become increasingly blurry, making it difficult to distinguish between them. The concepts have somewhat merged, where resort spas take on certain characteristics of a wellness spa, and vice versa. Thus, in some cases combining the best aspects of both worlds.

Aspects of a health and wellness spa

There are certain aspects that define the concept of a health and wellness spa. These include three different key areas including: food, the people and personality of the spa.

Food

A health and wellness spa does not need to serve healthy food exclusively. There are several different philosophies to be followed. While some wellness spas are geared towards assisting with weight loss using diets with restricted calories and strict portion controls, others have an all-you-can-eat approach with a bigger focus on training. Some don’t serve any type of alcohol; others may serve wine with dinner. Wellness can be achieved in a number of ways, where both mental and physical health are both equally important. 

People

A wellness spa centre is surrounded by a spirit of camaraderie where you’re in the presence of like-minded people who share the same values and interest in wellness and health. A wellness spa is in many cases fairly small, where only a small number of guests can stay at any given time to promote interaction between all of the guests; going on hikes, taking exercise classes and sharing tables during the stay.

Personality

There are a great variety of health and wellness spas. There is no right or wrong way how to design one as long as it envelopes the concept of promoting wellness. They can range from only hosting a small number of guests, to several hundreds. Offer the most basic of treatments or extremely luxurious. 

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