Travel Leaders Focuses on Wellness Hotels

Mar 13, 2016

What:
The Hotel Division at Travel Leaders Group has launched an amenity-driven “Select Wellness Collection.” The collection includes 40 hotel and spa resort properties around the world, with more to be added. Consumers must book with a Travel Leaders travel agent to access the collection’s curated experiences. Luxury wellness specialists will be given additional training.

Why It Matters:
According to Erick Rodriguez, senior vice president of hotel programs for Travel Leaders Group, the new wellness collection is a response to clients’ growing demand for experiences that are exclusive and offer health benefits. Wellness tourism now represents about 6 percent of all domestic and international travel and accounts for 14 percent of all tourism expenditures globally, according to the Global Wellness Institute. Next year, wellness travel is expected to reach $678.5 billion — so be sure you are one of the agents benefiting from this growth.

Fast Facts:
- To help curate its Select Wellness Collection, Travel Leaders Group’s Hotel Division worked with Sallie Fraenkel, formerly the chief operating officer of SpaFinder and executive vice president of the Global Wellness Summit (GWS).

- Travel Leaders expressed that the Select Wellness Collection experiences will follow the same standards for wellness vacations as those found in its luxury-oriented, amenity-driven Select Hotels & Resorts program.

- The Select Wellness Collection is among the Travel Leaders Group Hotel Division programs for exclusive use by travel agents within Nexion, Protravel International, Results! Travel, Travel Leaders Associates, Travel Leaders Corporate, Tzell Travel Group and Vacation.com.

What They Are Saying:
“Since wellness travel is projected to grow by more than 9 percent annually – nearly 50 percent faster than overall global tourism – we created our Select Wellness Collection to meet the growing demand for this type of experience among our agents’ clientele,” said Erick Rodriguez, senior vice president of the Travel Leaders Group Hotel Division. “Our curated collection is designed to cater to our agents’ most discerning and affluent travelers. Their quest for exclusivity and health benefits dovetails with some of the world’s most desirable and distinguished wellness-centric luxury properties that are participating.”