WELLNESS TOURISM
Promoting health and wellbeing in natural environments
The rapidly growing African ‘wellness in the wilderness’ concept harnesses a traditional safari to activities such as yoga, meditation and spa treatments
In November, "wellness in the wilderness" was identified as the most significant new trend to emerge in African travel by the World Travel Market Global Trends Report 2016. The concept combines a traditional safari with activities such as yoga, meditation and spa treatments. Such experiences, the report said, are typically booked by older, moneyed holiday makers yearning for "more than just a typical African getaway"– these travellers want to "gain life-enhancing skills through mindful activities that can be applied to everyday life, offering a richer holiday experience". The emergence of this trend in Africa has been a long time in coming. The New York-based Pravassa, which claims to be the world’s first wellness travel company, was founded by Linden Schaffer in 2009, when she traded a fashion career to take travellers on "healthy experiential journeys" to the likes of Vietnam and Costa Rica. Pravassa’s success forms part of a groundswell that has seen the global growth of wellness...
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