Social media and wellness: how hotels take advantage

As wellness-focused content rapidly grows via social media, the trend is also impacting both hotel revenues and guest experience.

According to a new report for Local Measure, there have been more than 1.8 times more mentions of fitness requests in hotels on their social media tracking year over year from 2016.

Requests for specific treatments at hotels, in fact, are also on the rise – for example with requests for detoxing services mentioned 2.3 times more on social media over last year.

For hotels, the proliferated interest in wellness across social platforms presents an opportunity to capitalize on the movement.

Citing, for example, how fitness entrepreneurs quickly reach 2.5 billion people through social, so, too, can hotels spread a broad message of wellness offerings as well as individualized communication.

“Wellness is not just a trend. There has been a collective shift in consciousness toward things … [that is] progressive and encompasses all sectors and demographics,” says Rohit Verma, executive director at Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures.

“Nowhere is this more noticeable than the hospitality industry where operators have been forced to rethink their entire business strategies through a wellness lens.”

Additionally, the report goes on to note the growth of wellness travel is far outpacing tourism overall.

The trend extends far beyond the U.S., as well. “We know there’s a growing demand for wellness-focused travel all over the world,” says Keith Barr, CEO of InterContinental Hotel Group. “We recognized the trend at an early stage as our research showed that there was an unmet demand for a holistic wellness travel experience.”