There are so many shifts in the wellness industry today it can be hard to keep up. To uncover the latest I spoke with Chloe Waller, a wellness expert and industry leader who works for the world-renowned Six Senses Spas in their newest and most innovative, urban spa location in Dubai, part of the newly-opened Renaissance Downtown Hotel, Dubai. Chloe began her career by creating her own wellness center at the age of 22 and her father and mentor founded the largest spa chain in the UAE. Here Chloe shares what to look for as wellness trends continue to shift and what to expect next.
- Selling Happiness: Advances in new techniques are developed regularly to help us become happier quicker and more easily. Hardly a week goes by without a new book, course or guide to ‘happiness’. Ultimately, these techniques involve self-awareness and reprogramming our consciousness and DNA. The future of happiness technologies will work directly with our genes or brain cells, they will reprogram consciousness and behavior directly. The pursuit of happiness may be changing and today the increasingly powerful technologies are opening to new possibilities.
- Storytelling: Wellness is a personal journey. It is a mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional experience. So many spas (and wellness) destinations have a disconnect from one activity to the next, what they should be trying to incorporate is a flow like state from one experience to the next, so their guests are taken on a wellness story. We are seeing a major shift where the spa should be an active not a passive adventure, you are the protagonist in your own story. The spa experience at Six Senses Spa Dubai is a great example of this where we take our customers on a sensory journey immersing them in the senses. Guests select the room they want, the music they want, and control their experience. The new trend is customized storytelling.
- Biohacking: Biohackers do not accept the biological limitations of the human body. They want to manipulate physiology in order to increase well-being and happiness. If you’re wondering how they do this, it’s a very good question! Technologies are used to change the genetic material of organisms and equip them with new characteristics. It can range from infrared light therapy, injectable nutrients, cryotherapy and more simply it can just be a simple lifestyle changes to optimize the way your body functions for example the elimination diet and intermittent fasting.
- Technology: Digital technology is here to stay and the hyper connectivity of the world where everything is linked to everything else, it will be the companies who are best connected and better informed about human behavior and health problems that will be the ones who can identify the business opportunities more quickly and develop new services faster. The most valuable companies are those best equipped to deal with vast amounts of complex data. We have to embrace technology alongside every other industry, only those who have access to the best data will prevail.
- Sustainability: Human wellness is crucially linked to the health of the planet and environment. Efforts to measure and minimize the carbon footprint, the impact on the environment, water, energy, biodiversity, chemical usage and much more. Wellness is only truly supportable when the health of our planet, our living systems, interactive social systems and personal wellness are in harmony. At Six Senses we record every key sustainability indicator from our spas energy consumption, water consumption, solid and liquid waste to our laundry and carbon footprint. We have on-site sustainability champions in every spa and resort ensuring the proper standards are adhered to at all times. Sustainability is the future.