11th March 2020 the W.H.O announced COVID19 as a worldwide pandemic!

The hospitality industry was left wondering what had hit them! And with that, restaurants, spas, hotels and resorts were creating new Policies and Procedures in order to manage this COVID 19 ‘pandemic’. Working from home, reduced hour work weeks, furlough and the dreaded redundancies were happening fast and furious… people all over the world were glued to their devices searching for clues on how we negotiate these new norms…
With so many people around the world hunkered down in their homes, in bounces ONLINE life, online everything!!
At this stage, Wellness takes the lead!
From hospitality brands to Personal Trainers to the Wellness/Life/Executive/Business Coach, schools/colleges/universities and many more, everyone was jostling for centre stage.

During the ongoing days, weeks, months of lockdown, knowledge and information were at our fingertips, (literally at our fingertips) which allowed us to dabble/sample/try/learn various different aspects of ‘wellness’.
‘How do we protect ourselves and our loved ones from catching the virus’?

Being the passionate ‘wellness warrior and working for a leading hotel wellness brand there are no complaints from my side as wellness takes centre stage.  I was immediately thrilled and became excited at the prospect of people all over the world having the time (enforced or not) to become better informed about how to incorporate wellness into their lifestyles! More and more people were becoming interested in all things wellness…

At the same time, the situation led me to further question where our ‘Wellness Industry’ was heading as we move forward into the potential unknown:  The Global Wellness Institute states: ‘Wellness tourism is a $639 billion market in 2017, projected to reach $919 billion by 2022’ and this was pre-COVID19! This is HUGE!!

So, What Is WELLNESS?
The word ‘wellness’ has become a very broad term and can include everything and pretty much anything from a body work (massage etc) to nutrition (balanced eating) to cold showers (from Shinto priests dousing themselves with ice cold water), breath work (monks and yogis practicing Pranayama increasing oxygen intake) to forest bathing (time in nature) to meditation to all forms of movement (with exercise and yoga being most familiar) to sound healing (music etc) to hospitality to real estate and the list goes on…

We all have also heard that wellness is a ‘journey’ a ‘way-of-life’!
No doubt we will also agree that it is the consistency of daily habits that ensures a successful life of feeling and being well. Wellness daily habits would hopefully include those of bathing, teeth brushing and hair washing, and these are invariably ingrained into our lives as basic hygiene habits, and so they should be.

This begs the question: What if the next wellness trend roll-out was just another lucrative money-making strategy? Not much different from any other business stream that we may criticize. How often have we encountered an ancient way-of-life philosophy, movement, food item that has taken centre stage and then packaged and sold to and for the masses? Don’t misunderstand me, I am NOT diminishing this knowledge/product/food item etc as they could be, and potential are extremely and significantly helpful.
I am merely suggesting that it may be worth a little more of a thoughtful questioning process.

At this moment in time, we need to ask the question; What can we offer in reply to every body – and every purchasing power needs?

I truly believe we need to ’go back to the basics’ when it comes to wellness, even when it does not offer instant-gratification.
‘Going back to basics’ ensures that we are daily and consistently eating well, keeping ourselves well hydrated, moving/exercising, stretching, meditating, having a spiritual quiet time, doing breath work exercises and keeping our boundaries strong with our work/life/family in-balance.

Wellness is a journey, a return to the simpler and conscious way of living, instead of just the plethora of ‘wellness’ offers that come at us from different spaces. May I humbly suggest that we need get onto a new journey of well-being – BEING-WELL!

Aristotle says is so well with “Quality is not an act, it is a habit” and “We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit”