The Wellness Retreat Boom: What's Driving It

Detox, fasting and wellness retreats have moved from niche to mainstream, with new options opening from Bali to Portugal to the Scottish Highlands. The boom is real. It is worth being precise about how we know that, because the evidence is not neutral.

The number, and who produces it

The most widely quoted figure comes from the Global Wellness Institute: a global wellness economy of $6.8 trillion in 2024, grown 7.9% in a year, doubled since 2013, and representing 6.12% of global GDP, with a projection of 7.6% annual growth to 2029.

Those are large, striking numbers, and they are produced by a trade body whose members benefit from them being large. That does not make them wrong — nobody else is measuring this — but it does mean two caveats travel with them.

First, “wellness” is defined broadly enough to include physical activity, healthy eating, public health and personal care. Most of that $6.8 trillion is not retreats. Second, an industry sizing its own market has an interest in a generous boundary. Read it as the best available estimate from an interested party, which is different from a statistic.

The global wellness economy grew by 7.9% from 2023-2024 and reached a new peak of $6.8 trillion in 2024.

What is behind it

• A post-pandemic appetite for resetting, and a willingness to spend on it.
• Remote work, which made a two-week trip a scheduling question rather than an impossible one.
• Social media, which turned the retreat from a private undertaking into a visible one.
• A gap in ordinary healthcare for people who are not ill but do not feel well, and find nowhere obvious to take that.

The last is the most interesting and the least discussed. A retreat sells structure, permission and attention — three things genuinely hard to buy elsewhere. That is a real product even where the physiological claims around it are not.

The safety point that actually matters

Most retreat advice lists credentials and reviews. Those matter, but there is one specific thing worth knowing if a programme involves extended fasting.

Reintroducing nutrition after prolonged starvation causes fluid and electrolyte shifts, with hypophosphataemia the hallmark, alongside falls in magnesium, potassium and thiamine. That is refeeding syndrome, and it can be serious.

Note when it happens: at the end. A retreat can supervise a fast attentively for six days and then serve a celebratory dinner on the seventh, which is the moment that needed the most care. So the question to ask is not “is the fast supervised” but “who is supervising how it ends, and what are they qualified in”.

What a good retreat looks like

• Named, qualified staff with credentials you can check independently — not “our team of experts”.
• Medical screening before you arrive, and a willingness to turn people away. A programme that accepts everyone is not screening.
• A written programme, so you know what you are agreeing to before you are somewhere remote.
• Claims about wellbeing, not disease. Rest, structure and a break from drinking are honest offers.
• Clear pricing and a cancellation policy, both stated before you pay.

Red flags

• Cure, reverse, flush or eliminate toxins. Any of these signals a place that oversells its physiology, which tells you how it will handle a judgement call.
• Extended fasting without medical oversight, especially at refeeding.
• A supplement package sold on arrival, particularly one you had not been told about.
• Testimonials instead of credentials.
• Pressure to extend or upgrade once you are there and dependent on them.

Before you book

Check the credentials against the register they claim, read reviews somewhere the retreat does not control, and if you have any health condition or take any medication, clear it with your doctor first — particularly for anything involving fasting. A good retreat is genuinely restorative. A bad one is an expensive risk taken a long way from your own GP.

Our retreats directory is a starting point, not a substitute for those checks.