Franz Linser of Linser Hospitality gave a speech to attendees of the Forum Hotel & Spa last week at the Four Seasons George V Hotel in Paris – encouraging operators to adopt a broader view of ‘wellness’ than the current definition so that products and services meet new consumer desires.

Linser noted that wellness is a form of self-design and that nowadays spas and wellness operators only have a limited time to help guests relax and unwind, due to consumers’ increasingly busy lifestyles. This means many health packages developed in the 90s are now out of date.

“Actual developments in the world – including increased pressure, insecurity and urbanisation – mean consumers have new desires, such as a need for more simplistic wellness rituals, ‘natural’ products promising permanent youth,” said Linser.

The spa and wellness market is not moving as fast as consumer desires, according to Linser, which makes products less relevant to the market. “To adapt to change, we need a wider view of wellness,” he said.

With all the health monitoring apps and biomarker tests available, Linser warns we can forget how important it is to actually live our lives. Obsessive tracking does not deliver wellness, according to Linser – who suggests that wellness should be about helping people to feel more.

“The new wellness-focused self-design model should be about encouraging people to stop fighting against their genes and to accept themselves,” said Linser. “Teach clients to be irreplaceable and to do things in their own way. Spas can help people on this journey by creating atmospheres for people to just ‘be’.

“Forget the manicures and pedicures, people will pay good money to go to places where they can just ‘be’,” added Linser.

The current spa business model – dubbed self-design 1.0 by Linser, as opposed to the new self-design 2.0 – is too focused on telling clients to improve elements of themselves, Linser said. “Self-design 2.0 will bring clients closer to their real selves.”