Some hotel operators are still treating wellness like a trend they can wait out. Forbes just made that a very expensive bet. It isn’t a trend anymore. It’s a rating criterion. The good news? You’re closer to giving your guests what they want, and to meeting the upcoming Forbes Standards, than you think.
In January 2027, Forbes Travel Guide adds an official well-being section to its ratings. It replaces the tired old fitness facility standards, and rated hotels are receiving the new ones right now, this fall.
Amanda Frasier, who oversees Standards & Ratings at Forbes, told LATTE in September why. Guests now choose where to stay based on wellbeing, and they aren't willing to drop the routines they keep at home. Not even for a night or two.
Read that again, because it applies to every hotel Forbes rates. The city hotel. The beach resort. The grande dame that's been pouring martinis for a century. Not just the wellness resorts.
And yet I still walk into gorgeous independent hotels where wellness exists only in the spa, if there is one. Or it's a rolled-up yoga mat in the corner of the guest room and a sad bowl of green apples at the front desk. Or it's simply not there and your guest has to find what they need off property…and they take their spend with them. Yikes!
The inspectors have noticed. Forbes already scores wellness at ordinary city and beach hotels, standard by standard. Michelin's inspectors have named "wellness beyond the spa" as a trend among the hotels they award Keys. Ready or not, your hotel is being graded.
What Forbes is already checking
Here's what surprises owners: Forbes treats wellness as a scoring category, not an amenity. Inspectors tag specific standards as Wellness, and most of them live in places you'd never think to call wellness.
A few from recent years:
Is the room quiet? Is the bed exceptionally comfortable? Does the blackout actually black out?
Is there something alive in the room, fresh flowers or a plant?
Does the server ask about dietary restrictions before taking the order, and remember them when the plate lands?
Are there real health-conscious drinks on the menu, and real non-alcoholic options at the bar? Not a club soda with lime.
Does evening service set a mood for the night, or just fold back the duvet?
Can a guest keep up their own healthy habits without having to ask?
That last one. For me, it’s the gold standard.
Notice what's not on that list. Equipment. Treatment menus. Square footage. What’s named above are service behaviors, and Forbes weights service at roughly two-thirds of the score. Translation: the spa isn't going to save you. Your people will.
Michelin doesn't hand you a checklist
Forbes tells you what it’s checking. Michelin doesn’t. It judges the philosophy of the whole property, and that’s a harder standard to prepare for.
Inspectors judge five things: architecture and design, quality and consistency of service, personality and character, value, and how the hotel contributes to its setting. The Guide's international director, Gwendal Poullennec, has said the Keys don't reward "a catalogue of services and facilities."
So no, bolting a cold plunge onto the pool deck won't earn you a Key.
Here’s where it gets interesting. In this year’s selection, Michelin inspectors named “wellness beyond the spa” as a trend: hotels weaving more thoughtful wellness and fitness throughout the guests’ stay, as travelers focus on their physical and mental wellbeing. Translation: your spa is no longer where wellness lives. Your guests want their routines to travel with them.
But beyond the spa doesn’t mean beyond your budget. It doesn’t mean a new department. It means wellness woven into the ones you already have, felt throughout your guests’ stay.
Michelin rewards wellness that feels like it belongs to the place, and that guests never have to go looking for.
Two inspectors, one blind spot
Put them side by side and they're grading different layers of the same thing.
Forbes wants to know whether wellbeing shows up, reliably, at every touchpoint. Michelin wants to know whether the whole stay carries a point of view that belongs to its place.
Build only to the Forbes list and you'll pass, and still feel like every other hotel on the block. Build a gorgeous wellness concept your team can't deliver consistently, and you'll charm an inspector once, then lose the points on execution.
The hotels that win both have done two things: designed wellness across every department, and trained their people to deliver it without a script.
You're closer than you think
Here’s the good news nobody tells independent owners: you don’t need to become a wellness hotel. You don’t need a longevity clinic, a cryo chamber or a signature retreat. You need wellbeing woven into every touchpoint, instead of buried on page four of the in-room directory.
Almost everything both systems reward lives in four places:
Eat. What's in the kitchen, the minibar and the welcome amenity, and what your server asks before the order.
Sleep. Sound, light, temperature, the bed, the bathroom at 3 a.m., and how the room feels after evening service.
Movement. Not a bigger gym. An invitation to move that suits your guest and your setting.
Mindset. How guests feel arriving, staying and leaving, and whether your team can read it.
So be honest: what would an inspector notice in your hotel tonight? Most of the fix doesn't need a contractor. It needs intention, a few operational shifts in each department, and a team that understands why.
The cornerstone
Underneath every one of those Forbes standards, and underneath Frasier’s reason for the new section, sits one idea: guests should be able to keep up their own healthy habits without having to ask.
I’d take it one step further. These are habits guests work hard to keep and invest real money in. The hotels that honor that don’t just meet a standard. They give guests a sense of belonging.
That idea is the cornerstone of my work. The guest who came to play golf would be served well with an early morning Functional Mobility offering instead of the standard yoga class. The guest who doesn't drink should still feel welcome and a sense of belonging in the bar scene with a thoughtfully curated zero-proof drink menu. The guest who sleeps badly in strange rooms shouldn't have to call down for an explanation on how to lower the temperature in the room because their thermostat is locked at 68. When a hotel anticipates the habit, the guest feels known, and that is the feeling luxury has always promised.
Through Arc of Care™, I work with independent luxury hotels to design exactly that. I spend 48 hours on property, openly, as a guest. Then I map where wellness already lives in the guest journey, where it's missing, and what each department would change so guests never have to ask.
And yes, it pays. The design is built to lift what owners actually measure: food and beverage, length of stay, retail, and the spa where there is one. Ratings tend to follow a guest experience that holds together.
The inspectors have already decided that wellness is a signal of luxury. The only question left is whether your guests feel it before the inspector does.
Curious what this looks like in practice? Here's the Nights section of a sample Arc of Care™ Audit: https://www.chermeli.com/audit
If you own or run an independent property and want to know where yours stands, let's talk.
