Welfie and fitness tourism – new worldwide trends

New current studies and research show us emerging new trends. The latest holiday trip report has indicated the preferences of travellers in the direction of active spending of the time instead of lounging on the beach and sipping cold beer. According to the data published by Hotels.com portal, physical activities have become the most important element of summer holidays for 79% respondents. The main reason pointed out by more than a half of those questioned are celebrities and their active lifestyle and fitness influencers in social media. The research carried out by experts from the Hotels.com portal shows that the popularity of active trips contributed mostly to ubiquitous fitness influencers who are willing to combine outdoor sports plus they can build a very attractive image of such active lifestyle.

Social media experienced "welfie" flood among young vacationers this summer, who were more eager to post a selfie straight from a sweaty heavy workout (16 percent) than in a sexy swimwear (10 percent). Millennials, who enjoy travelling, while away look for richer and more unusual experiences and admit that they use training to meet new people (27 percent) and new places from a different perspective (32 percent). There is a great desire to obtain unique memories (42%) and prove in social media that time spent while on holidays was top-notch and the highest level in terms of activities and quality (29%).

The fitness trend has already made a huge impact on different areas of our lives and its now settled for good. It also permanently entered people’s holiday calendar so that the demand for top-class fitness facilities available at hotels have reached its peak. Fitness equipment at the highest level (26%), personal training (20%), healthy menu options (25%) and free wearable fitness equipment (17%) rank high on the hotel guest wish list.

What is not surprising men are looking for extreme experiences during their vacation. They are mostly interested in cross-fit (12%), a boot camp on the beach (12%) and wakeboarding (16%), while quarter of women prefer holistic wellness trips where meditations, yoga and tai chi are added to the main program. This is why we can observe a huge boom on fitness boot camps and wellness trips market right now. Many fit influencers join their forces with holiday tour operators and offer a full fit holiday package. This has become a new fitness industry branch and it’s definitely on the trending up side. During last summer vacation’s most popular activities were:

• Strength training with your own body weight (69%)
• Mountain climbing (45%)
• Personal training (34 percent)
• HIIT interval swimming (26%)
• Hot yoga (25 percent)

Why should those trends be important to you? Why should you at least know them and observe? I would recommend to check and verify the data in PerfectGym management software in order to see who is your target group. If those trends affect your customers you can try to earn on them. There is a general growing trend of instagramable interiors and it’s valid not only for gyms of course, but you could easily join the bandwagon. Think of space in your club perfect for doing welfies – this could bring you lots of social media traffic and feed your customers’ need for doing selfies while training. And this is only the tip of an iceberg of ideas how you can use such information and work on new marketing actions.