An invitation worth answering
Hilton's 2027 Trends Report opens with a letter from Chris Nassetta that ends with an invitation. He writes that he hopes the report inspires an industry-wide conversation about helping travelers find greater balance, deeper connections and more meaningful experiences, creating journeys that "continue to enrich their lives long after they return home."
For me, that sentence defines wellness in hospitality: balance, connection and meaning, felt during the stay and carried home long after. I'd like to take him up on his invitation and join the conversation.
I've spent 30 years at the intersection of wellness and hospitality. I started in New York and Los Angeles nightlife, at a time when tastemakers were defining luxury as excess: expensive labels and visible VIP treatment. That treatment was designed as much to exclude as to include. Being kept out was what made people want in. (That has shifted too, and I'll explore it in a future article, because a sense of belonging is an essential part of wellbeing.)
Then I pivoted into wellness, designing what we now call "Social Wellness" experiences and leading retreats around the world, built around what people actually needed to feel well in body, mind and spirit.
From where I sit, as someone who has worked in wellness for decades and lives it daily, as an avid traveler, and now as a designer of wellness ecosystems for independent luxury hotels, the report confirms something I've been saying for a while: guests have already shifted their priorities, both in their lives and in how they travel. Of equal importance, in my view, is how they now judge and signal luxury. It used to be worn on the outside: the label, the bag, the watch that demonstrated wealth. Now the investment has shifted to prioritizing wellbeing: rest, nourishment, movement and a calm mind. Most properties have heard about that shift many times over. Far fewer know how to deliver it.
There are many simple, beautiful ways to layer wellness into a stay, and what that looks like should be specific to each property. Something as seemingly small as bath products matters: many of your guests have already swapped heavily perfumed products for cleaner ones at home, and they notice the difference when they travel. Finding those details for a specific property is what a thoughtful audit of the guest journey is for. But before any of that, there's a more fundamental opportunity to meet your guests' growing expectations for wellbeing, and it already exists in your operations. The mechanism is in place on your property. What's missing is how and when you and your team use it, and when you don't.
What travelers are saying
The research is consistent, and it points in one direction.
They want to travel on their own terms. Nassetta describes travelers as less interested in someone else's definition of perfection. A guest's wellbeing isn't a spa menu with unlimited champagne that the property hands them. It's what they tell you they need (because you asked), delivered throughout their stay.
They travel to rest, but rest means something different now. In 2015, travelers described it as a break from home and work. In Hilton's 2026 report, 56% say their main reason for leisure travel is to rest and recharge, and improving mental health is among their top desires. Guests traveling for business or family obligations lean even harder on the next point.
They bring their habits with them. A Hilton survey found that 90% of travelers strive to keep up their wellness routines on the road. Ninety percent is no small number. Read that again, because it tells you exactly what your guests want and need, and it isn't a wildly expensive piece of biohacking equipment. It's the comfort of home: routines that feel good, disciplines that are the foundation of their wellbeing, carried with them wherever they go. That doesn't mean guests want their stay to feel like home. They still want what a great property offers that daily life doesn't: the view, the linens, the attentive service, and yes, the indulgences. But they want to choose their indulgences and have their own idea of comfort recognized alongside them. They don't want someone else deciding what comfort and luxury mean on their behalf.
They want to be reached simply. Once they arrive, 65% of travelers say text communication from the hotel is valuable. I understand why. I'm a firm believer in human connection, especially in service. But sometimes a quick answer by text, from a real person, is the least stressful path. When it comes to wellbeing, it's also a simple tool: a short message confirming what the guest shared before arrival, and an easy way to say what they need in the moment, without having to repeat themselves.
Put together, guests are telling the industry who they are and what makes them feel well. The old playbook decided that for them: the suite, the champagne, the VIP treatment. The new one starts by listening and following through.
The opportunity is in the ask, and in the follow-through
Most luxury properties already ask their guests what they want and need. There's a pre-arrival email, a preferences form, a guest profile. What happens next is where many properties fall short, and where the real opportunity to support a guest's wellbeing begins.
But those answers often stay in the system and never reach the people who could, and should, act on them.
Say a guest mentions before arrival that they're coming to play golf. If that answer stays in the system, nothing happens. If it travels, the concierge invites them to the morning mobility session before tee time, which might even improve their game. Housekeeping makes sure the room is stocked with plenty of water, or the property's own hydration drink, for when they come in from eighteen holes in the hot Florida sun. One answer, communicated well between departments, shows up throughout your guest's stay.
Meanwhile, luxury travelers know that a VIP code exists, that it reaches every department and is followed through on without fail. So they know your hotel already has the means to make information travel, which leaves them wondering why it isn't being used for them and their wellbeing.
Asking without following through can have the opposite of the intended effect. More than once, I've asked myself, and even a hotel team member, "What's the point of the pre-arrival email if you're not going to do anything with the information?"
I'll say it plainly, because I know I'm not alone in feeling it. I don't expect a full-time butler like the penthouse guest. I know I'm paying less, and I accept getting less. What I don't accept is being made to feel less, even when it's unintended. When I've been asked what I need and nothing happens, that's exactly how it feels. Every one of your guests deserves follow-through. That's where the wellness you strive to deliver takes root. After all, you asked.
Wellness in hospitality doesn't start with the spa or the latest expensive equipment. It starts with recording what guests share, communicating it across every department, and following through. The mechanism already exists. Activating it, so your team can serve every guest, is the differentiator.
Three questions for operators
If you lead a property, try answering these honestly:
When a guest shares their wellbeing needs before arrival, how many of your departments know before the guest walks in? Do they confirm it, or ask again?
Does a guest's sleep preference reach housekeeping with the same reliability as a VIP code?
Who on your team owns making sure what a guest shares is communicated to the right departments, received, and delivered?
If the answers are uncertain, you’re not alone. The good news is that the solution is within reach, and it positions your property to meet the market’s growing demand for wellness.
Guests have stopped letting someone else define luxury for them. More and more, they define it as feeling well. The properties that lead next will be the ones who not only ask what wellbeing means to each guest, but deliver it throughout the stay.
And follow-through is only the foundation. Once a property reliably delivers on what guests share, there are many thoughtful signals of wellness that can be layered into the stay, specific to the property, its location and the guests it attracts. In my view, every luxury property should be seeking to identify and layer in these signals. The rating bodies are moving the same way: Forbes Travel Guide's president of standards and ratings has said a dedicated well-being section will join its standards in January 2027, and the MICHELIN Guide now presents a Wellness Award alongside its Keys, recognizing hotels that nurture body, mind and spirit.
