18 Spa Wellness Travel Statistics Every Hotel and Destination Spa Owner Should Know

We read the Global Wellness Institute's wellness tourism definition and 2025 market monitor, the American Hotel and Lodging Association's 2026 State of the Industry summary, and ISPA's 2026 U.S. spa industry release. The goal was to extract the travel statistics that help hotel and destination spa operators understand demand without turning a broad tourism number into an invented spa revenue benchmark.

The most important boundary is this: GWI's wellness tourism expenditure includes lodging, food and beverage, transportation, activities, shopping, and other travel services. AHLA's hotel guest spending is also broader than spa revenue. ISPA measures the U.S. spa industry separately. These figures are useful context for finding and sizing opportunity, but a property can claim spa capture only when it links a treatment to a hotel guest or travel demand in its own records.

All dollar figures below are in U.S. dollars. The GWI figures cover both primary and secondary wellness travel, while the hotel and spa figures use their own industry definitions. Keep the unit, geography, and denominator beside every number.

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Global wellness tourism reached $893.9 billion and 1,239.1 million trips in 2024

The Global Wellness Institute's 2025 monitor reports that global wellness tourism reached $893.9 billion in expenditure and 1,239.1 million trips in 2024. Wellness travel represented 8.3% of all tourism trips and 17.6% of all tourism spending.

Those figures are large because the category covers travelers who make wellness the main reason for a trip and travelers who add wellness experiences to another trip. They are not the number of spa appointments, and they should not be divided by the number of hotel rooms to produce a local spa opportunity.

GWI projects wellness tourism to reach $1.3833 trillion by 2029

GWI projects that wellness tourism will reach $1,383.3 billion in 2029, with a projected annual growth rate of 9.1% after the 2024 recovery period. This is a forward-looking estimate for the entire wellness travel economy, not a forecast for any individual resort or hotel spa.

The useful planning question is what part of that projected spending a property can actually serve. A destination spa may capture treatment revenue, room revenue, food and beverage, retail, activities, or package revenue. A city hotel with a small spa may capture only a narrow slice of a guest's wellness spend, so the property needs a local attachment model instead of applying the global growth rate to its treatment room forecast.

Secondary wellness travel represented 83% of trips and 84% of spending

GWI's 2025 monitor reports that secondary wellness travel accounted for 83% of wellness tourism trips and 84% of wellness tourism expenditure in 2024. Secondary travelers are taking a leisure or business trip for another main reason and adding wellness choices during the trip.

This is a major opportunity for hotel spas because a guest does not need to book a dedicated wellness retreat to become a wellness customer. It also changes the marketing message. A hotel can promote a treatment as part of a business trip, family vacation, anniversary, or weekend away rather than waiting for the guest to identify as a dedicated wellness traveler.

A primary wellness traveler chooses the trip for wellness, while a secondary traveler adds wellness to another trip

GWI defines a primary wellness traveler as someone whose trip or destination choice is primarily motivated by wellness. A secondary wellness traveler seeks to maintain wellness or participate in wellness experiences while taking any type of leisure or business trip. The same person can be primary on one trip and secondary on another.

The distinction should appear in a hotel's booking and spa data. A guest who chooses a destination spa retreat has a different lead time, package need, and acquisition channel from a conference attendee who books a 60-minute treatment after checking in. Both are valuable, but the offer, forecast, and measurement should not treat them as one segment.

GWI's wellness tourism number covers the whole trip, not just the treatment

GWI measures wellness tourism by aggregating spending across lodging, food and beverage, activities and excursions, shopping, in-country transportation, and other services. It includes international and domestic travelers and both primary and secondary wellness trips.

That definition explains why the market is much larger than the spa sector. A hotel spa should not present the $893.9 billion figure as money spent on massages or facials. It should use the figure to explain the travel context and then report the property's actual share of guest spend with a separately defined spa numerator.

North America recorded 239.3 million wellness trips at $1,449 per trip

GWI reports 239.3 million wellness trips in North America in 2024 and average spending of $1,449 per wellness trip. The average is a trip-level measure that includes the full travel economy, not the treatment bill paid at a spa.

For a North American hotel or destination spa, the number supports a demand hypothesis rather than a pricing rule. A property can ask whether its travelers are buying lodging, treatments, dining, fitness, excursions, and retail together, then measure which combinations actually occur. A treatment ticket cannot answer that question by itself.

Ninety-five percent of U.S. wellness trips were domestic

GWI reports that 95% of U.S. wellness trips in 2024 were domestic. Its U.S. data records 220.5 million wellness trips and $330.2 billion in wellness tourism expenditure. Domestic demand therefore matters even when a spa is located at a destination associated with international travel.

For operators, domestic can mean a drive-to weekend, a regional resort stay, a nearby city break, or a local resident staying at a hotel for a short wellness escape. Capture the traveler's origin market and distance from the property instead of treating all non-local demand as international tourism.

AHLA expects U.S. hotel guest spending to approach $805 billion in 2026

AHLA's 2026 State of the Industry summary expects hotel guest spending to reach nearly $805 billion in 2026, a 1.7% increase over 2025. The report also says hotels generated $85.1 billion in local, state, and federal taxes in 2025 and paid nearly $128 billion in wages and benefits.

This gives hotel spa operators a current hotel-sector demand context. It does not tell them how much hotel guests will spend at the spa, which guests will book, or whether the property can convert room nights into treatment revenue. The spa must measure that connection at the property level.

Hotel guest spending is not hotel spa revenue

AHLA's hotel guest spending figure describes spending associated with hotel guests and the broader hotel economy. It is not a spa segment, and the public summary does not give a hotel-spa share. Treating it as a spa revenue pool would mix the hotel's room, food and beverage, transportation, and other guest spending with treatment revenue.

The correct use is to create a denominator for a local attachment question. For example, a hotel can calculate spa revenue linked to hotel guests divided by occupied room nights, or hotel guests who booked a treatment divided by eligible hotel guests. The chosen denominator should be stated beside the result.

The U.S. spa industry reported $23.5 billion in revenue and 191 million visits in 2025

ISPA's 2026 Big Five reported $23.5 billion in U.S. spa revenue, 191 million spa visits, 22,060 locations, and $123.10 in revenue per visit for 2025. This is the most useful current scale reference for the U.S. spa industry itself.

The ISPA figures should remain separate from GWI and AHLA. ISPA counts spa industry activity, GWI counts wellness travel activity, and AHLA describes hotel guest spending. A hotel spa can use all three sources in one article only if it labels the three populations and does not imply that one is the numerator of another.

ISPA's $123.10 revenue per spa visit is not a wellness traveler spend figure

ISPA's $123.10 is revenue per U.S. spa visit. It is not the $1,449 that GWI reports as average North American wellness traveler spending per trip, and it is not the expected $805 billion in U.S. hotel guest spending. The three numbers answer three different questions.

The comparison is still useful because it shows how easily travel and spa statistics can be misquoted. Use ISPA to describe spa visit economics, GWI to describe the travel economy, and AHLA to describe hotel demand. Then add property-level data for the share of travelers who actually book a spa service.

One traveler can be a primary wellness traveler on one trip and a secondary traveler on another

GWI explicitly notes that primary and secondary wellness travel can be undertaken by the same person on different trips. Someone may book a dedicated hot spring or destination spa trip one year and book a massage during a family vacation the next year.

This matters for customer lifetime value and segmentation. A hotel should not permanently label a guest as only a retreat customer or only an incidental spa customer. Track the purpose and behavior of each stay so the property can see when a secondary guest becomes a primary wellness traveler.

Distinctive local experiences matter to discerning wellness travelers

GWI says wellness travel is not a cookie-cutter experience and points to local culture, natural assets, food, history, and destination-specific practices as ways to create differentiation. It also notes that more discerning travelers want experiences that are different from what they can find elsewhere.

For a destination spa, the insight is more specific than "offer wellness." The property should identify which local asset makes the treatment, ritual, thermal experience, food program, or recovery package difficult to copy. Measure demand for the distinctive component separately from generic treatments so the marketing investment can be tied to actual bookings.

GWI says wellness tourism can help destinations reduce seasonality

GWI identifies seasonality as one potential benefit of wellness tourism. Its examples include ski destinations attracting wellness travelers during summer and beach destinations offering tranquil experiences during winter. The source does not provide a universal percentage reduction in seasonality.

The operational takeaway is to map wellness demand against the property's low season rather than treating wellness as a year-round assumption. A seasonal package may create demand in a weak month, but the property should compare incremental occupied room nights, spa appointments, staffing cost, and package margin before calling it a success.

The public sources do not provide a hotel-spa share of wellness tourism

The reviewed GWI, AHLA, and ISPA sources do not publish a universal percentage of wellness tourism expenditure that flows to hotel spas. GWI explicitly measures a broad travel economy, AHLA reports hotel-sector spending, and ISPA reports the U.S. spa industry. None of those public summaries supplies the missing hotel-spa attachment rate.

That source gap is more useful than a made-up estimate. A hotel or destination spa can become the original source for its own market by publishing a clearly defined capture rate, treatment attachment rate, or spa revenue per occupied room night, with the period, property type, and denominator stated.

A hotel spa should measure guest attachment instead of assuming destination demand becomes spa demand

Use a local attachment model that connects a spa transaction to a hotel stay. Useful measures include:

Hotel guest spa attachment rate = hotel guests who book a spa service / eligible hotel guests x 100
Spa capture per occupied room night = hotel guest linked spa revenue / occupied room nights
Spa visits per 100 occupied room nights = hotel guest linked spa visits / occupied room nights x 100
Travel-linked spa share = travel-linked spa visits / total spa visits x 100

These are local formulas, not industry benchmarks. Define whether an eligible guest means a room arrival, a guest registration, a room night, or a party. Decide how to classify a local resident who uses the spa without staying at the hotel, and keep that population outside the hotel attachment denominator.

A travel spa dashboard needs source market, stay, and treatment linkage

At minimum, connect the spa booking record to the guest's stay when consent and systems allow it. Record origin market, booking channel, arrival and departure dates, room nights, primary or secondary wellness purpose, package code, treatment, treatment length, provider, spend, retail, and whether the guest used the hotel spa as an in-house or outside visitor.

The dashboard should also show lead time, day of stay, day of week, season, cancellation status, and repeat behavior. Those fields reveal whether the spa is dependent on same-day hotel demand, advance retreat packages, local traffic, or a small number of high-value travel periods.

The most useful spa travel metrics are capture, spend, and repeat behavior

A hotel or destination spa can turn the broad sources into linkable original research by publishing a small set of repeatable metrics:

Average spa spend per hotel guest = hotel guest linked spa revenue / hotel guests who booked spa
Package attachment rate = guests buying a spa-inclusive package / eligible hotel stays x 100
Travel guest repeat rate = travel-linked guests with another visit within 12 months / travel-linked guests x 100
Secondary traveler share = non-primary wellness stays with a spa visit / travel-linked spa stays x 100
Local versus travel share = local spa visits / total spa visits x 100

Report each measure with the property type, period, geography, and denominator. That is the bridge between a global wellness tourism statistic and a useful hotel spa article: readers can understand the size of the opportunity, while the property's own data proves what it actually captured.

Sources

• Global Wellness Institute: Wellness Tourism - Definitions of wellness tourism, primary and secondary travelers, and the wider travel economy.
• Global Wellness Institute Global Wellness Economy Monitor 2025 - 2024 wellness tourism expenditure, trips, regional spending, 2029 projection, and primary versus secondary shares.
• AHLA 2026 State of the Industry - U.S. hotel guest spending, taxes, wages, and workforce context.
• AHLA releases 2026 State of the Industry - Public summary of the report's hotel demand outlook and limitations.
• ISPA 2026 Big Five statistics - U.S. 2025 spa revenue, visits, locations, and revenue per visit.