2025 Is Shaping Up to Be a Year of Self-Care. Call It the White Lotus Effect.
2025 Is Shaping Up to Be a Year of Self-Care. Call It the White Lotus Effect.
Wellness tourism has ballooned into a $259 billion industry just as consumers have more reason to check out.
Photo: Getty Images
This year, expect things to get a little bit crunchier. Cleanses, supplements, gut health—the terminology and trends once reserved for the Goop class—have reached the mainstream as wellness has grown into a $1.8 trillion industry. That’s according to Forerunner Ventures.
The San Francisco-based, consumer-focused venture capital firm, which has more than $3 billion in assets under management and a portfolio that has included startup names like Warby Parker, Away, Glossier, Prose, and Hims & Hers, released its annual consumer report this week,
and focused on wellness as one of the two key tailwinds that will define the consumer sector this year (the other one being personal security).
While this space is not exactly a new trend—Apple’s App Store trend of the year was self-care back in 2018—its growth is accelerating, and not just in the most popular and obvious segments, like the $310 billion personal care and beauty market and the $339 billion physical activity market. Spas have become a $26 billion business. The market for an even longer-term relaxation session is nearly 10 times that: Of the 16 subsegments of the health and wellness industry that Forerunner examined in the report, the fastest-growing one was wellness tourism. The $259 billion industry expanded by a 31.8 percent annualized rate.
Call it The White Lotus effect. Consumers are looking to combat the sense of skittishness that is setting in. People have been feeling uneasy about the impact of tariffs and uncertain about the outlook for the economy. Consumer spending has started to slow from the rapid growth pace seen during the back half of last year. This was the message from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell at his press conference yesterday.
So with the vibes starting to feel off, people are looking for escapism and putting their money into the only sure remedy: self-care.
Shifting your messaging to match your customer
How can you shift your messaging to focus on personal care? Since we serve so many industries I don’t have a one size fit’s all answer, but I bet your team does. Pose this question to them on ways your business can project a sense of care to your customers, weather it’s through service levels or merchandise the has an element of self-care. It could even be in their sales presentation to customers about how this fabric, furniture, candles, plants or whatever can help them feel more relaxed and less stressed.
With the growth of this trend it would be wise to add a question to your mystery shopping form relating to self-care and/or relaxation. We're here to partner with you in successfully engaging with your customer. Give us a call.
ALI DONALDSON AND CARL PHILLIPS
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