Why This Year’s Global Wellness Summit Matters

With just one month to go until the 9th annual Global Wellness Summit (GWS) in Mexico City, businesses in the sector need to take note. Despite the fact that GWS is an invitation only event, we’re take a look at how the event is bringing together international leaders to positively shape the future of the wellness industry – and why, if you’re in the business of wellness, it matters.

What is the Global Wellness Summit?

The event, which is held in a different location each year, previously including the U.S., Switzerland, Turkey and Bali, is designed to provide a forum in which influential figures can meet to discuss current issues affecting the wellness industry and solve any shared problems that might be stunting progress.

Created by a group of industry leaders who decided to model the conference on the successful format of the not-for-profit World Economic Forum held each year in Davos, Switzerland, this year’s GWS in particular is expected to host a record number of delegates from myriad industries, including spa, education and tourism, beauty, fitness, nutrition, workplace wellness and technology.

What’s on the 2015 agenda?

The main focus for this year’s Summit will revolve around “Building a Well World,” – a comprehensive look at how the dramatic growth of the wellness sector (now worth $3.4 trillion) is transforming lives on both a personal and professional level – and what that means for the future.

Keynote speaker Dr. Deepak Chopra (leading figure in the the holistic-health movement) will head up a list of high-profile presenters, including executives from companies including Cirque du Soleil and Zappos; Mexico City’s Ministers of Tourism and Health; and panelists from renowned organisations such as Johnson & Johnson, the Mayo Clinic, Duke Integrative Medicine and Harvard Chan School of Public Health.

Attendees will also be invited to join panels and workshops featuring a wide range of topics including technology, diet and nutrition, how to attract investment, wellness communities and residences, as well as new conceptual distinctions being made between “wellness” and “well-being.” And new for 2015 is a focus on “clinical wellness,” with panelists taking an objective look at how medical treatment and wellness modalities can co-exist more effectively. In addition, findings from the Global Wellness Institute’s major research report on the “The Future of Wellness at Work” will be presented.

Why is the Summit important?

Aside from the actual objectives of the Summit, which aim to:

Establish a forum for dialogue among global industry leaders
Create community by fostering friendly relationships among stakeholders
Inspire a spirit of collaboration to solve shared problems
Facilitate healthy growth for the industry and its individual businesses
Initiate and support quality research
Encourage innovation
Cultivate leaders for tomorrow

Behind the scenes, the event helps its attendees to build new business relationships and strategise together. According to PRWeb, the event offers an unparalleled number of platforms designed to drive industry collaboration and problem-solving and fores new business relationships among its wellness-focused delegates.

“This year’s Summit was designed with ‘collaboration’ and ‘networking’ at its core, and it’s this unique programming that has attracted a record number of first-time registrants in 2015,” Susie Ellis, Chairman & CEO, GWS told PRWeb.

“Unlike a conference where you passively learn, or a trade show where you’re ‘being sold’, the Summit is all about face-to-face collaboration, strategy-sharing and problem-solving… something all too rare in today’s wired world.”

For those who haven’t been invited to the event, all PowerPoints, session notes, videos and research reports shared at the past Summits are available to the entire industry on the official website.