Why Incorporate Wellness into Event Planning
Events are an opportunity to engage audiences meaningfully; to celebrate, to inform, and to provide a value-rich experience. At Landry & Kling, our decades of experience have proven that when meeting or event participants feel a sense of wellbeing, they are more connected to the event, its theme, and the other participants.
From activities to creative breaks, from in-room amenities to the spaces themselves, nearly every aspect of your next meeting or event at sea can potentially bring a wellness activity into the experience. Landry & Kling’s dedicated operations team can work with cruise lines to plan activities that encompass these kinds of elements as well as excursions and activities both off and on the ship. Additionally, the L&K onboard logistics team can support setup and breakdown to ensure the space reflects your vision.
It’s More Than a Trend; It’s a Movement
Wellness, in travel and hospitality, once was a word that referred to spa treatments and yoga classes sought by a narrow segment of guests. Those seeking wellness experiences could do so at the hotel, resort, or cruise ship spa—and that was generally the extent of it. Now, however, wellness is an abundant landscape of experiences integrated into many, if not most, aspects of what travel providers offer to guests, as well as something that an ever-widening percentage of people seek out in their everyday lives. Sleep hygiene, self-care rituals, meditation, nutrition, focusing on movement, and incorporating rest are but a few of the many ways to embrace wellness.
The Global Wellness Institute’s 2024 Global Wellness Economy Monitor revealed that the wellness economy reached a new peak of $6.3 trillion in 2023 and is projected to grow to nearly $9.0 trillion by 2028.
Wellness tourism, in particular, is projected to grow to surpass a $1 trillion industry by 2028. Embedding wellness into your events invites your attendees to feel cared for, to know that nourishing one’s physical and inner well-being are top of mind.
A focus on wellness is here to stay, and clearly something that engages people the world over.
Elevate Your Events by Embracing Wellness
Look at any luxury or travel trend reports from the last five years, and you’ll notice that most of them mention wellness in one form or another as being important to people. People want space to breathe and reset and might find that while gazing out at the edge of the ocean’s horizon, or in noctourism’s delightful focus on deriving tranquility and wonder from gazing at the night sky. They might enhance their quest for calmness by taking place in guided meditations or mindfully considering every aspect of their travel experience. Perhaps they’ll detox from their digital devices in an intentional way, or elevate their food and beverage choices to purposefully enhance mood, mental clarity, and energy.
Meeting people where they are—keen to feel good, quite simply—is a powerful way to ensure that your attendees feel engaged and to build a lasting emotional connection with them. Embracing wellness in your meetings and events helps avoid burnout and relieve stress and anxiety, so you give your attendees a sense of freedom and possibility that often works its way into meetings in the form of creativity, innovation, increased productivity, and meaningful networking. Even small touches of self-care can make work-related gatherings feel like restorative moments.
Landry & Kling can help you curate wellness strategies that align with your overall goals, and work with cruise lines to understand the many ways they already embrace wellness, to facilitate the journey.
Wellness = ROI: What You Gain When You Prioritize Well-Being
When you incorporate wellness into your event, focus on mindfulness, and introduce other positive and impactful experiences, participants tune in. Energy levels rise. Future events look more appealing to attendees. All of this leads to long-term success.
Best practices that promote wellness have an effect on the attendees, and that, in turn, shapes the outcome of your gatherings:
| Effect | Result for Your Meetings and Events |
|---|---|
| ↑ Productivity and creativity | Attendees bring sharper focus, better ideas, and more innovation. |
| ↓ Burnout and stress | Wellness breaks reduce fatigue, anxiety, and tension. |
| ↑ Engagement and emotional connection | People feel seen, valued, and connected to your organization. |
| ↑ Loyalty and repeat attendance | Guests are more likely to return and spread the word. |
| ↑ Positive brand perception | Wellness-forward events position you as caring, modern, and mindful. |
Modern Cruise Lines Know Wellness Is Here To Stay
Modern cruise lines are ideal for meetings and events that are committed to integrating wellness and having a positive impact on attendees. And, most cruise lines have evolved their wellness offering to extend far beyond the spa. Landry & Kling works with partners who have taken a mindful approach to considering all the ways they can offer guests experiences that make them feel good, inside and out.
Here are a few examples:
1. Seabourn
The sumptuous spas on Seabourn’s ships offer a rich menu of massages, facials, and beauty treatments that combine traditional practices and cutting-edge techniques with globally inspired practices. Its fitness program offers both a well-equipped workout space and knowledgeable trainers and instructors. At The Retreat, an upper-deck enclave on two of Seabourn’s ships, 15 private cabanas made to feel like private living rooms encircle the main upper-deck space, and one cabana can be booked for outdoor spa treatments.
2. Celebrity Cruises
When Celebrity Cruises introduced its AquaClass staterooms, it pioneered the infusion of wellness into many aspects of one’s cruise experience. Celebrity says, “Wellness is so essential to who we are, we offer an entire guest experience around it,” and indeed, the AquaClass offering is designed for holistic well-being, featuring amenities like verandas at the water’s edge, cashmere mattresses, pillow menus, daily bottled water, and healthy in-room dining options. Guests enjoy exclusive access to the Blu restaurant with clean cuisine, Celebrity’s SEA Thermal Suite, a spa concierge, complimentary fitness passes, preferential spa rates, and a yoga mat, allowing them to fully nurture mind, body, and spirit.
3. Regent Seven Seas
Expanding beyond its Serene Spa onboard, Regent Seven Seas offers Wellness Tours, which invite guests going ashore in select destinations to experiences that support a health- and well-being-focused lifestyle. On a beach near Santa Cruz, Tenerife, a sunset yoga session immerses guests in the bliss of practicing intentional movement and breathwork in a stunning locale. From Rome, guests can travel to the ancient city of Viterbo, known since the time of the Etruscans and Romans for its healing thermal springs. And in Corfu, a holistic wellness experience at a tranquil country home includes yoga, meditation, and the opportunity to watch a chef prepare a healthy meal using fresh, local ingredients.
4. Lindblad Expeditions
The luxury adventure brand offers short, energizing “Wild Escapes” designed to give travelers the mental health boost of a luxury adventure holiday without an extended time commitment. Relieving stress and embracing a feeling of being alive in an extraordinary setting is the key; the Lindblad Expeditions + National Geographic Wild Iceland Escape, for example, uses nature immersion, cultural experiences, and exciting scenery to offset burnout and connect travelers to their inner adventurer.
5. Explora Journeys
Ocean Wellness may be the name that Explora Journeys gives to its spa and fitness program, but the belief that the sea holds healing power is embedded into nearly every aspect of the experience, as is an emphasis on discovering one’s “Ocean State of Mind.” Spaces have been designed to bring guests close to the sea in as many moments as possible. Every guest accommodation option is oceanfront with a private terrace. From the sophisticated aesthetics and “right vibe at the right time” intimate-venue entertainment programming to its widely varied culinary offerings with a focus on locally provisioned ingredients and a number of little-known outdoor cabanas and spaces in unexpected places, the brand wishes for guests to relax into a sense of possibility inspired by the sea.
6. AmaWaterways
Like most European river cruise brands, AmaWaterways has a thoughtful and well-integrated approach to wellness. In addition to its onboard amenities that include a fitness room, personalized instruction, meditation, yoga, tai chi, and other experiences, AmaWaterways ships also have a fleet of bicycles for guests to use when exploring destinations. AmaWaterways also offers “Celebration of Wellness River Cruises” several times a year; these include wellness talks, an experience at a local spa on land, guided walks on land, and more.
Adding Wellness to Your Meeting or Event Leads to Long-Term Joy
Whether wellness at meetings and events is new for your organization or it’s something you’ve done in the past, by bringing it to your attendee experience with intentionality and purpose, you are helping to leading a movement within your team culture, that recognizes that individuals who are happy, healthy, and well make for a successful whole. You realize that true wellness spreads into all aspects of one’s life, so you are committing to the power you have to reduce stress among your stakeholders, emphasize the value you place on mental and physical health, and leading more people to make a positive emotional connection with the organization.
Positive Feedback
In many years of bringing meetings and events to life at sea, Landry & Kling has seen an abundance of positive feedback for leaders who put the participants’ experience first. Let us do that for your next event, with wellness.
Feeling Good = Loyalty
With all of this in mind, it’s easy to feel excited about bringing wellness into your next meeting. You’ll also find that when people feel good, they want more of that feeling, and they will look forward to your future gatherings.
Competitive Advantage
Being happy, healthy, and well as a result of a concerted effort to be mindful, to move frequently, to spend time outdoors, to feel mental well-being, and to keep screen time to a minimum, makes for stronger team members. Be the guiding force that not only brings your teams more contentment and longevity, but makes your entire enterprise stronger, more nimble, and more innovative as a result.
Meet the C-Suite Where They Are
A recent article on Fortune.com cites Canyon Ranch as saying that wellness experiences are a growing trend among “alpha” executives, or high-performing, influential leaders. Most popular among this group are multi-faceted longevity programs that align mental health, time spent outdoors, nutrition, movement, and spiritual wellness, among other elements. Remind them of the ways that they, too, can practice wellness during the event, and that a happy, healthy, and well team means a brighter, more productive, more collaborative team.
Designate Time to Shape Your Own Wellness Journey
Meeting planners work incredibly hard. The vast amounts of information, direction, desires, ideas, and details that swirl together for any one event can be mentally and physically all-consuming. Make your own wellness efforts a priority. Tap into your superior organization skills to find ways to build regular wellness practices into your daily life, and make sure your time overseeing the execution of your next event or meeting also includes breaks that allow you to recharge through rest, relaxation, meditation, outdoor activities, and movement.
Why Wait? Bring Wellness To Your Very Next Meeting or Event
In a fast-paced, often chaotic world, wellness is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity. Doing what one can to be happy, healthy, and well is a way to thrive, to contribute one’s best work and ideas, and to be a good partner in relationships of all kinds. The global wellness industry continues to grow, but still has not reached its summit; it’s clear that people want to feel good. And when people feel good, good things happen.
FAQs
What benefits come from connecting attendees with the sea?
Being near the sea can be calming. Removing the immediate pressures of everyday life and gazing at the sea can help attendees enter into a tranquil, reflective state that can allow space for ideas and innovations to bloom. For some, the sea is a reminder of nature’s resilience and of a connection with the cosmos, feelings that can boost one’s sense of purpose and value.
How does wellness improve attendee engagement and retention?
Simple ideas go a long way. Landry & Kling are experts at looking at the business goals of a meeting, the offerings unique to each cruise line, and finding elegant solutions that improve mental clarity, complement the notion of having fun while being present, and create memorable experiences. Adding moments that let attendees prioritize health and well-being while they also absorb and retain all the business benefits of participation make for a very successful corporate event.
Are there specific wellness certifications for events planners?
Yes. Although there is not currently a universally recognized certification in the events industry, there are several certifications that include the integration of wellness, ranging from that of a practitioner to event design. There is an abundance of ways to incorporate wellness into meetings and events, and certifications
What are some common challenges in including wellness programs at meetings and events?
Not everyone wants to participate in every activity with the same enthusiasm. It’s important to allow space for people to lean as deeply into wellness as they want to, and to let them naturally find their sense of balance.
Physical activities can inadvertently exclude those with mobility issues or other challenges, so it’s important to include a range of experiences that can accommodate everyone.
How do I begin planning a wellness-integrated event at sea?
Begin by considering how you feel about work-life balance yourself, then imagine how your attendees would feel valued by offerings of healthy food, meditation sessions, morning yoga, mindfulness activities, and other ways to unwind. Make it part of the overall intention of the event experience: imagine that the best way to cater to your business goals and achieve your agenda is to create immersive, memorable experiences and to leave attendees feeling refreshed, not overwhelmed.
