Global Wellness Summit Highlights Women ’ s Health , Positive Economic Forecasts
BY LISA STARR
LIKE MANY LARGE SCALE EVENTS in the last two years , the Global Wellness Summit has been forced to navigate the ever-evolving challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic , adjusting venues , timing and speaker rosters as needed in order to bring attendees together in person . But Chairwoman & CEO Susie Ellis , Executive Director Nancy Davis and their crack team have repeatedly risen to the occasion . The 2021 Summit took place this past November in Boston after having been originally planned for Tel Aviv . This switch was not without its benefits , enabling the attendance of many esteemed academics from Harvard and other universities , as well as techworld titans , all of whom contributed to the theme “ A NEW New Era in Health & Wellness .”
THE GLOBAL PICTURE Each year , the nonprofit Global Wellness Institute releases their annual research on a particular market sector at the Summit . In 2021 , the research focused on the overall wellness economy and attempted to measure the effects of COVID-19 on the industry , updating numbers last revealed in 2017 . Their report , The Global Wellness Economy : Looking Beyond Covid , estimates that the economic shocks from the pandemic caused the global wellness economy to contract by 11 percent , to $ 4.4 trillion , in 2020 . Of the 11 sectors tracked , those that took the biggest hit were , not surprisingly , Wellness Tourism , Spas and Thermal & Mineral Springs , all with revenue decreases of approximately 40 percent . Altogether , seven sectors shrank , and four grew . Public Health & Preventative Medicine grew 4.5 percent , Mental Wellness grew 7.2 percent and Healthy Eating & Nutrition grew by 31 percent ( although some of this latter is attributed to higher prices ). The big winner was Well- ness Real Estate , which grew 22 percent to $ 275 billion . Despite the inconsistency illustrated by these figures , the outlook for the future remains rosy : the Institute believes that , based on consumer demands and the ever-evolving convergence of healthcare and wellness , the industry revenue will return to pre-pandemic levels in 2021 ($ 5 trillion ) and will grow at an impressive 10 percent annual pace through 2025 , when it will reach $ 7 trillion .
30 PULSE ■ FEBRUARY / MARCH 2022