This is, it said, “a watershed moment for wellness”. Last week, the Global Wellness Summit in St Andrews gathered a global industry together and what it talked most about was water. This is a business , whose impact is growing, and whose economic worth is now worth nearly £5 trillion globally.
With that, however comes high resource consumption and a significant planetary footprint. At the summit we were told that hydrotherapy, bathhouses, swimming in nature and hot springs, were all big trends, but also that spas and tourism were causing an increasing problem in a growing global water crisis. The reason I was there was as an advocate for wild swimming, a low-impact water activity, invited to tell the story, with my book-collaborator, Anna Deacon, of the rise of outdoor swimming in Scotland and the UK, and the wellbeing effects on the individuals and communities who regularly dip together.
Here are my key takeaways from three days of talks, and meeting delegates who ranged from a former NASA scientist to mental health researchers, nutritionists and longevity gurus. 1. Wild swimming is going global Delegates swimming at the Global Wellness Summit (Image: Vicky Allan) One of the reasons that my swimming books collaborator, Anna Deacon, and I were invited to the summit to host a swim and talk, is that “bathing in nature” is a big trend for 2025.
It’s even listed in a Future of Wellness Tourism 2025 report launched at the event. That interest was palpable at the confere.