Written by Elena Andreolli 

Anticipating the Future: 3 global trends to meet the challenge in Well-being.

 

The road ahead for the wellness industry seems to be dotted with only positive signs. Experts, economists and analysts point to the prosperous opportunities for a sector that ranges from gyms to spas, from nutrition to beauty, and from supplements to health trackers.

In recent years, we have all been witness to a huge process of change: on the one hand, the rapid evolution of science and technology has opened up previously unexplored worlds and options, and on the other, recent socio-political events have contributed to uncertainty and destabilisation. The impact of these revolutionary dynamics has been decidedly strong even in such a promising sector such as wellness: the pandemic, economic uncertainty, and worsening climatic conditions are fuelling people’s deep need to take care of themselves.

In today’s fluid, uncertain and fast-paced environment, creating our future is the only approach to take: it is neither a question of working with a sense of imagination nor of predicting something already written, but of applying the powerful tools made available by studies of the future world. It is essential to learn how to read events and anticipate a hypothetical tomorrow: to understand the opportunities and risks that may arise and to acquire information from the clues left by the past, the impulses of the present and the emerging cues from the future.

The analysis of megatrends – i.e. the powerful forces of global change at work that impact the way people live – helps us to build an interesting overview of the future of the wellness industry. In particular, among the 14 global macro-trends noted by the European Commission (1), three appear central.

First of all, ongoing demographic changes – such as an increasing and ageing population and longer healthy life expectancy – will generate profound changes in lifestyles. It will become essential to understand well-being as a balance between the inner self (body, mind, and brain) and the surrounding environment, a concept people will seek in an ongoing and continuous manner across all fields, including health, work, and finances. Travel will become an increasingly dominant element, driven by the desire for discovery without discontinuity, aimed at savouring the soul of a place, seeing one’s emotions and senses involved. Well-being journeys, driven by demographic and social factors (new markets, transport implementation, more leisure time, etc.) might become fixed periods in the lives of individuals if they assist them in achieving and maintaining much-desired well-being.

The second megatrend that will significantly influence the wellness sector is the technological revolution. Health in general will be among the fields most intensely affected by profound transformations at the technological level, along with energy and mobility. Technology will help change the way we treat and care for ourselves, our bodies and our minds. Advances in genetics, and nanotechnology, enhanced by globally connected smart networks, which will also foster the fusion of the real and the digital, will define a process of empowerment for people, create new networks and new spaces for self-care and, above all, the quest for longevity. It is anticipated that smart and targeted superfoods will enhance the cosmetics industry; virtual reality will offer experiences that will enrich people’s minds and allow them to experience new emotions. In the future, people will be able to monitor their health in real-time and preserve it through trackers connected to devices in their homes and smart cities.

Finally, ongoing climate change represents the third trend that may have a significant impact in the field of well-being, particularly in terms of its profound effect on people’s health: the heavy effects caused by pollution will lead to new meaning for well-being holidays, stemming from the need to seek benefits and relief on both a physical and emotional level. Moreover, for organisations active in the sector, the growth of ethical awareness in individuals is likely to give space only to those who prove to be authentically sustainable, demonstrating that they have sought and implemented a generative union with society and the landscape.

Future studies, which are becoming among the core competencies of competitive ability in the marketplace, confirm that the future itself is closely dependent on our actions and, in general, on our ability to imagine and generate the new, as individuals and, above all, as organisations. Therefore, to build positive performance in the world of wellness, all that remains is to prepare ourselves to seize the opportunities provided by emerging lifestyles, technology and the global context and to integrate them into our customer value proposition.

https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/foresight/working-megatrends_en

 

Elena Andreolli

Managing Director of Azienda Consorziale Terme di Comano.

An engineering management professional whose passion and profession have always focused on innovation.

She is an expert in strategic foresight and future studies and a certified business coach.