The wellness economy, digested
Digest of the Global Wellness Institute's 2025 Global Wellness Economy Monitor: $6.8 trillion in 2024, 7.9% growth, $9.8 trillion forecast by 2029, 201,861 spas earning $157 billion — and what it means for spa leaders.
The Global Wellness Institute's 2025 Global Wellness Economy Monitor (published November 2025) is the one primary source most spa strategy papers should cite and most do not. The headline figures, with the source, and then what a spa leader should take from them.
The figures
Wellness economy: $6.8 trillion in 2024, up 7.9% on 2023; forecast $9.8 trillion by 2029 (about 7.6% a year). Spas: 201,861 facilities worldwide earning $157 billion. All eleven wellness sectors above their 2019 levels. Source: GWI, 2025 Global Wellness Economy Monitor.
What it means for an owner
The spa sector's $157 billion across 201,861 facilities is an average of about $778,000 revenue per spa — a reminder that most spas are small businesses, and that a hotel spa turning over several million is in the top tier by size. Growth of 7–8% a year in the wider economy does not arrive at every spa; it arrives at spas positioned for the growing segments — wellness tourism, thermal and bathing, medical aesthetics.
What it means for a director
Use the GWI figures in strategy papers for context, never as a forecast for your spa. Your forecast comes from your own utilisation, average treatment value and capture rate — see the anatomy of a spa P&L.
Questions
Why not quote a market-size figure for my country?
GWI publishes country tables for members; we cite only what is public. Ask the desk for the country page reference before quoting.
Is the average-revenue-per-spa figure GWI's?
No — it is our arithmetic on GWI's two published totals, and it is an average across very unlike facilities. Use it as scale, not benchmark.
Across the network
Become a spa manager, salaries, jobs
Country-level guides
One email a month, with sources