In an increasingly competitive global wellness tourism market, the demand for meaningful, transformative travel experiences continues to grow, with travellers seeking opportunities to restore balance, improve wellbeing and reconnect with themselves. At the forefront of this movement is Jayasom, a name synonymous with holistic wellness, personalised care and a philosophy that places individual wellbeing at the heart of the guest experience.
In this Breaking Travel News Q&A, Karen Campbell, Chief Executive Officer of Jayasom, discusses the evolving wellness landscape, the changing expectations of today’s wellness travellers and the importance of creating experiences that deliver lasting benefits beyond the traditional holiday. She also shares her perspective on the opportunities shaping the future of wellness hospitality and how Jayasom is continuing to develop its distinctive approach in an increasingly dynamic international market.
1. How has the definition of wellness travel evolved in recent years?
Wellness travel has become much broader than the traditional idea of a spa break. Travellers are increasingly interested in primary and intentional experiences that support their overall wellbeing, including nutrition, movement, sleep, emotional balance, recovery and healthy ageing.
There is also a greater sense of personal responsibility around wellbeing. People want to understand how they live, how they sleep, how they eat, how they manage stress and how they move, rather than simply seeking short-term treatment.
At Jayasom, we see wellness as a daily practice. A retreat can provide the time and space to pause, reflect and develop new awareness, but the real value is what guests take home with them. The aim is to give people knowledge, practical tools and habits that can remain relevant long after their stay.
2. Are travellers now moving beyond traditional spa treatments towards more preventative, personalised and results-driven wellbeing programmes?
There is certainly growing interest in wellness experiences that have a clear purpose and feel relevant to the individual. The Global Wellness Institute describes this distinction in terms of primary and secondary wellness: primary wellness is when wellbeing is a core intention of the experience, while secondary wellness is an additional experience, such as a massage, within a stay whose primary purpose is leisure or accommodation.
A treatment can be deeply beneficial, but a more complete wellness journey considers what a guest is trying to achieve and how different elements can work together. At Jayasom, our programmes bring together areas such as movement, nutrition, recovery, relaxation, personalised treatments and individual guidance, allowing each guest’s experience to reflect their needs, preferences and goals.
Guests increasingly want experiences that help them make progress or learn new skills, but that does not mean every aspect of wellness should be reduced to a number. Progress may be reflected in how someone moves, sleeps, manages stress or feels in their daily life.
There is no single definition of wellness, so the journey should not be identical for everyone. The goal is to create an experience that is meaningful, personalised and relevant to the individual.
3. Longevity has become one of the industry’s most prominent trends. What does it genuinely mean in a hospitality context, beyond the marketing language?
Longevity should mean much more than simply trying to extend the number of years we live. It should also be about the quality of those years and how we experience them.
In a wellness context, that means helping people understand the daily choices that support vitality, mobility, resilience and overall wellbeing. Nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management and social connection all have a role to play.
There is a lot of interest in longevity as a high-tech or highly clinical concept, and those approaches may be appropriate for some people. But we see longevity as something more personal and connected to everyday life. Getting the basics right is fundamental. Not smoking, limiting alcohol, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, eating fresh and nutritious food, and having meaningful relationships, purpose and connection in our lives all provide an important foundation.
Without those fundamentals, there is little to build on.
Ultimately, the most valuable outcome is helping guests understand themselves better and develop habits that can remain relevant long after they leave. Longevity should be about living well, not simply living longer.
4. How can a wellness retreat personalise each guest’s experience without making it feel overly clinical?
Personalisation begins with listening.
At Jayasom, a Wellness Advisor takes time to understand the guest’s goals, interests, preferences and constraints before helping to curate the programme. That relationship is important because people are more likely to continue with something when it feels appropriate and enjoyable for them.
Personalisation also means recognising that guests may arrive at very different stages in their wellness journey. Some may want a structured programme, while others may want to focus on rest, recovery or simply explore what wellness means for them.
That is why we bring together different experiences, from movement and nutrition to treatments, recovery, learning and time in nature. The aim is to create a programme that feels considered and personal, while still retaining the warmth and ease of a hospitality experience.
5. What role should diagnostics, technology and guest data play in creating an effective wellness programme?
Diagnostics, technology and data can be useful when they help qualified practitioners understand guests more clearly, while also helping guests better understand themselves and their own wellbeing.
They should, however, serve the guest experience rather than become the experience themselves. Any information should be gathered with the guest’s knowledge and consent, treated confidentially and used only where it adds genuine value to their programme.
At Jayasom, personalisation is not based only on data or measurements. It also depends on conversation, observation and understanding what motivates an individual. A Wellness Advisor plays an important role in bringing those elements together.
The Jayasom app can also connect with selected wearable devices, allowing our advisors to monitor guests’ health data should they wish to share it. This can support a more informed and personalised approach to their wellbeing journey.
Technology can support that process, but it should not replace the human judgement, relationship and care that are central to a meaningful wellness experience.
6. How do you balance medical credibility and measurable outcomes with the warmth, service and enjoyment expected from a luxury hospitality experience?
The two should not be seen as separate. A wellness experience can be credible and thoughtfully assessed while still feeling welcoming, personal and enjoyable.
For us, the starting point is to understand what the guest needs and to bring together the right expertise and experiences. That may include nutrition, movement, physiotherapy, recovery, mindfulness, personalised treatments or clinical services, depending on the individual.
Where assessment or measurable progress is appropriate, it should be overseen by suitably qualified professionals and interpreted within the context of the guest’s overall wellbeing. We must also be careful not to promise outcomes that a wellness stay cannot guarantee.
Enjoyment matters because people are far more likely to continue with activities and habits that feel positive and achievable. Our role is to find the pleasure that supports the guest’s goals while ensuring that clinical and therapeutic services are delivered responsibly by qualified professionals within their areas of expertise.
7. What are guests increasingly seeking from wellness travel, and how do their expectations vary between generations and international markets?
Guests are increasingly looking for experiences that feel personal, meaningful and relevant to their lives.
Their priorities naturally differ. Some guests are focused on rest, emotional wellbeing and managing stress, while others may be interested in strength, mobility, recovery, nutrition or healthy ageing. Families may want to develop positive habits together, while solo travellers or couples may be looking for time to reconnect with themselves or one another.
Expectations also vary across international markets. Different cultures have different relationships with food, privacy, family, movement and personal care, so a successful wellness experience must be culturally aware without relying on assumptions.
That is why flexibility is important. At Jayasom, we have developed programmes and experiences for individuals, couples, families, women, leaders and guests with particular wellness goals. The underlying need is often similar: people want to feel better and return home with something useful and sustainable.
8. Is wellness travel becoming something people integrate into their everyday lives rather than an occasional retreat or holiday?
Yes, and that is central to how we understand wellness.
A retreat creates something that is increasingly difficult to find in everyday life: time and space to pause, reflect and pay attention to yourself. But the real value is what happens afterwards.
We cannot expect someone to change their entire lifestyle during a short stay. What we can do is help them understand what works for them and identify practical changes they may be able to continue at home.
That is why Jayasom focuses on the daily practice of wellness. We want guests to leave not simply feeling rested, but with greater awareness, knowledge and a clearer sense of how they can live well every day.
9. What particular opportunities do you see for wellness and longevity tourism across Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East?
The opportunity is significant because the region combines extraordinary natural environments, a strong culture of hospitality and rapidly growing interest in health and wellbeing.
Saudi Arabia, in particular, has the opportunity to create wellness destinations that are distinctive to the Kingdom rather than replicating established models from elsewhere. The scale of ambition, the focus on quality of life and the ability to consider wellness from the beginning of a destination’s development create a very strong foundation.
There is also an important opportunity to make wellness relevant across different generations. By creating experiences for adults, couples and families, the sector can help introduce positive habits earlier in life and make wellbeing part of the way people live, rather than something reserved for an occasional retreat.
At Jayasom AMAALA, we see an opportunity to contribute to that development through a comprehensive wellness environment that is internationally informed, deeply connected to the Red Sea landscape and designed around the needs of regional and international guests.
10. How is Jayasom responding to the growing demand for preventative health and personalised wellbeing?
Jayasom has always focused on wellness as a long-term practice rather than a quick fix.
Our programmes are shaped around individual goals and can bring together wellness guidance, nutrition, movement, physiotherapy, recovery, holistic therapies and personalised treatments. A Wellness Advisor helps guests navigate those choices and create a journey that reflects their needs, interests and preferred level of structure.
The wellness centre will offer more than 200 therapies and treatments across six modes: traditional and holistic health; physiotherapy and recovery; strength and mobility; spa and hydrotherapy; aesthetic and clinical services; and nutrition and vitality.
We also place a strong emphasis on conscious cuisine, movement, nature and learning. The aim is to support guests during their stay while helping them develop a better understanding of the habits and choices that can support their wellbeing over time.
11. What distinguishes Jayasom’s approach from the rapidly growing number of hotels and resorts now positioning themselves within the wellness sector?
What distinguishes Jayasom is its personal and integrated approach to wellness. Rather than treating wellness as a collection of individual treatments or a separate department of the resort, we look at the guest as a whole.
Accommodation, nutrition, sleep, movement, recovery, treatments, mindfulness, learning and time in nature are designed to work together. A Wellness Advisor helps curate and coordinate these elements around each guest’s needs, preferences and goals.
Jayasom also recognises that wellbeing is relevant at every stage of life. Our approach includes experiences for individuals, couples and families, allowing guests to engage with wellness in a way that reflects how they actually live.
Ultimately, the distinction is not simply the number of treatments available. It is the intention behind the stay: helping guests understand their wellbeing more clearly and leave with practical knowledge or habits that continue to have value after they return home.
12. How important are food, sleep, movement, mental wellbeing and social connection within a genuinely holistic programme?
They are deeply interconnected. It is difficult to look at one area of wellbeing in isolation because sleep can affect energy and recovery, stress can influence appetite and motivation, and movement can support both physical and emotional wellbeing.
Food is particularly important because it is something we engage with every day. At Jayasom, nutrition is part of the wider wellness journey rather than something separate from it. Conscious cuisine, culinary experiences, movement, recovery, mindfulness, nature and learning all contribute to the experience.
Social connection is equally important. Time with family, shared experiences and a sense of belonging can all contribute to emotional wellbeing and make positive habits easier to sustain.
The intention is not to prescribe one ideal lifestyle. It is to help each guest understand which areas may need attention and how they can support one another.
13. How can resorts help guests sustain the benefits of their stay once they return home?
The first step is to make the experience practical and personal. Education and sharing knowledge are also fundamental, because understanding why something is being recommended can create a much stronger commitment to taking action.
Guests are more likely to sustain a change when they understand why it matters to them and when the habit fits naturally into their lives. That is why we focus on helping people identify what they enjoy, what is realistic and what supports their individual goals.
A stay should provide more than treatments. It should offer knowledge, reflection and opportunities to practise new behaviours. This may involve learning about nutrition, exploring different forms of movement, developing a better understanding of rest or simply creating space to reassess daily routines.
We cannot create lasting change for someone, but we can help them begin. The intention is for guests to leave with a clearer sense of what wellbeing means for them, why it matters and how they can continue that practice at home.
14. What skills and training will hospitality teams need as wellness programmes become more specialised and sophisticated?
Hospitality teams will need to combine strong service skills with a deeper understanding of wellbeing and the different disciplines that contribute to it.
That does not mean every hospitality professional needs to become a therapist or clinician. It means teams should understand the purpose of the experience, know how to guide guests appropriately and recognise when specialist expertise is required.
Listening and communication will be particularly important. Wellness is personal, and guests need to feel understood rather than processed.
At Jayasom, that means collaboration between hospitality teams, Wellness Advisors, practitioners, nutrition specialists and other experts. The ability to work together, maintain professional standards and deliver care consistently is essential.
As wellness becomes more sophisticated, I also think the human side of hospitality becomes even more important. Technology and specialist expertise can add significant value, but guests still need to feel genuinely cared for.
15. Looking ahead five years, how do you expect wellness travel and longevity hospitality to have changed?
Wellness travel will become more integrated into the broader travel experience, but I also expect it to become more personal.
Guests will become increasingly discerning about the quality of information, the credibility of services and whether an experience genuinely adds value to their lives. We will continue to see interest in longevity, prevention, personalised nutrition, movement, recovery, mental wellbeing and technology.
At the same time, I hope the industry remains focused on the fundamentals. Sometimes the most valuable things are still time, sleep, good food, meaningful movement, nature and human connection.
At Jayasom AMAALA, we are putting that philosophy into practice by bringing together evidence-based practices, holistic healing, movement, nutrition, recovery and local and regional wellness wisdom within the natural environment of the Red Sea.
For Jayasom, the future is about bringing these elements together with integrity. Wellness should not be treated as a passing trend. It is a way of living, and hospitality has an important role to play in helping people experience that in a meaningful and sustainable way.
