Wellness industry statistics and facts

What the wellness industry is and how big it has become

Wellness has moved from a lifestyle niche to one of the largest consumer markets in the world. The Global Wellness Institute, which has measured the sector since 2008, defines the wellness economy as the set of industries that let people build healthy habits and lifestyles into their daily lives. On that basis the global wellness economy was worth $6.8 trillion in 2024, the latest year with complete data, a new record and roughly double its size just over a decade earlier.

That figure covers a remarkably broad range of activity. It includes the beauty products on bathroom shelves, the gyms and fitness apps people use, the supplements and healthy foods they buy, the spa breaks and wellness holidays they take, and even the homes and offices designed to support health. Eleven distinct sectors sit under the wellness umbrella, and each is a substantial industry in its own right.

What makes the sector notable is not just its scale but its momentum. The wellness economy has grown faster than the global economy for more than a decade, expanding at about 6.5 percent a year from 2013 to 2024 while global GDP grew roughly 3.2 percent a year. As of 2024 it accounted for about 6.1 percent of global GDP. The sections below set out the market size, the eleven sectors, the fastest-growing areas, the regional and country picture, and where the industry is heading.

The Global Wellness Institute draws a clear line between the wellness economy and conventional healthcare. Where healthcare largely treats illness after it appears, the wellness economy is built around helping people stay well in the first place, through prevention, lifestyle and self-care. That distinction matters for the numbers: the wellness figures sit alongside, rather than inside, the roughly $11 trillion the world spends on health each year, and the two together show how large the total health and wellbeing economy has become. It also helps explain the sheer breadth of the sector, which touches food, retail, travel, property, technology and public policy all at once.

How the wellness economy has grown

The headline number tells the story of a market on a long upward path. From about $3.4 trillion in 2013, the wellness economy climbed steadily, dipped briefly during the pandemic, then rebounded strongly to reach $6.8 trillion in 2024. The Global Wellness Institute projects it will keep growing at roughly 7.6 percent a year and approach $9.8 trillion by 2029.

A decade of doubling: from $3.4 trillion in 2013 to $6.8 trillion in 2024, with GWI projecting nearly $9.8 trillion by 2029.

Growth on this scale is unusual for such a large market. The wellness economy has more than doubled since the Global Wellness Institute first measured it at $3.4 trillion in 2013, and the pace has accelerated since the pandemic as consumers put more of their spending toward health, prevention and self-care. In 2024 alone the market expanded 7.9 percent, faster than its long-run average, with every one of the eleven sectors now above its pre-pandemic level.

The pandemic left a clear mark on the trajectory. Wellness spending dipped in 2020 as gyms, spas and travel shut down, but the recovery that followed was rapid and broad. By 2024 every sector had climbed back above its 2019 level, most by a wide margin, and the overall market was more than a quarter larger than before the pandemic. The Global Wellness Institute describes the period since as a shift from recovery into sustained expansion, with growth in 2024 running ahead of the long-run trend. Crucially, the market has held up through inflation and economic uncertainty, suggesting that wellness spending has become something consumers protect rather than cut.

The eleven sectors of the wellness economy

The wellness economy is not one industry but eleven, ranging from trillion-dollar consumer categories to smaller specialist markets. The chart below ranks all eleven by their 2024 market size.

Three trillion-dollar sectors: personal care and beauty, healthy eating, and physical activity together make up more than half of the wellness economy.

Personal care and beauty is the biggest sector at about $1.35 trillion in 2024, closely followed by healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss at $1.15 trillion and physical activity at $1.14 trillion. Those top three alone account for roughly 54 percent of the entire wellness economy. Wellness tourism follows at $894 billion, then public health, prevention and personalized medicine at $676 billion.

The middle of the table holds some of the most dynamic markets. Traditional and complementary medicine stands at $606 billion, wellness real estate at $548 billion, and mental wellness at $268 billion. Smaller but established sectors round out the list: spas at $157 billion, thermal and mineral springs at $72 billion, and workplace wellness at $53 billion. Because activities overlap, for example a spa inside a wellness resort, the eleven sectors deliberately do not sum to the headline total.

Each sector captures a different way people spend on wellbeing. Personal care and beauty covers skincare, cosmetics, grooming and salon services. Healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss spans natural and functional foods, supplements and diet programs. Physical activity includes gym memberships, sports and fitness equipment, apparel and technology. Wellness tourism counts the extra spending travellers make on health-focused trips, while public health, prevention and personalized medicine reflects both government prevention programs and the fast-growing field of tailored, data-driven care.

The remaining sectors are more specialized but no less real. Traditional and complementary medicine covers practices such as herbal remedies, acupuncture and homeopathy. Wellness real estate refers to homes and communities designed with health in mind. Mental wellness spans meditation apps, sleep and relaxation products and emotional wellbeing services. Spas, thermal and mineral springs, and workplace wellness round out the list, each serving a distinct set of consumers and businesses. This diversity is one reason the wellness economy has proved so resilient: when one sector slows, others tend to keep growing.

Where the growth is coming from

Size and growth are two different things. Some of the largest sectors are growing only modestly, while several smaller ones are expanding rapidly. The chart shows average annual growth from 2019 to 2024 for the leading sectors.

Standout growers: wellness real estate expanded about 19.5 percent a year and mental wellness about 12.4 percent, roughly doubling each market since 2019.

Wellness real estate, meaning homes and communities built with health features such as clean air, natural light and access to nature, is the runaway leader at about 19.5 percent annual growth. Mental wellness, which covers meditation and mindfulness apps, emotional wellbeing services and related products, follows at 12.4 percent. Both markets have roughly doubled since 2019. Public health, prevention and personalized medicine grew 8.6 percent a year, while wellness tourism and spas each grew above 6 percent.

At the other end, the largest consumer sectors grew more slowly, in the 4 to 5 percent range, reflecting their maturity. Workplace wellness and thermal and mineral springs lagged, though both are expected to pick up. Looking forward, the Global Wellness Institute expects wellness real estate and mental wellness to keep leading, and it forecasts that six sectors will each pass $1 trillion in size by 2029.

The surge in wellness real estate reflects a change in how buildings are designed and marketed. Developers increasingly treat features such as air and water quality, natural light, green space and fitness amenities as selling points, and buyers are willing to pay more for them. Mental wellness has been propelled by a broad cultural shift that has removed much of the stigma around mental health, combined with a wave of affordable apps and services that put support on every phone. Looking ahead, the Global Wellness Institute expects both to remain among the fastest growers, alongside strong gains in personalized medicine, traditional and complementary medicine, and thermal springs.

How wellness compares with other industries

To grasp the scale of the wellness economy, it helps to set it against other well-known global industries. On the Global Wellness Institute measure, wellness is now bigger than several of the world best-known mega-markets.

A mega-industry: at $6.8 trillion, wellness tops IT, the green economy, tourism, sports and pharmaceuticals.

At $6.8 trillion the wellness economy is larger than the global IT industry ($5.3 trillion), the green economy ($5.1 trillion), tourism ($5.0 trillion) and sports ($2.7 trillion). It is nearly four times the size of the global pharmaceutical industry, estimated at about $1.8 trillion. For a sense of how the health-related markets relate, the wellness economy is roughly 60 percent the size of total global health expenditures. Our report on biotechnology in pharma worldwide looks in more detail at the pharmaceutical side of that comparison.

Where wellness spending happens

The wellness economy is heavily concentrated in three regions. North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe together account for close to 90 percent of all global wellness spending, as the chart shows.

North America out front: the region overtook Asia-Pacific to become the largest wellness market at $2.3 trillion in 2024.

North America is the largest regional wellness economy at about $2.3 trillion, having overtaken Asia-Pacific in recent years as some major Asian markets grew more slowly and currencies weakened. Asia-Pacific sits at roughly $2.0 trillion and Europe at $1.7 trillion. The remaining share, close to $0.8 trillion, is spread across Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last five years, North America, the Middle East-North Africa and Europe have been the fastest-growing regions, with North America expanding about 7.9 percent a year.

The regional picture is shifting. North America pulled ahead partly because several large Asian markets grew slowly through 2020 to 2022 and their currencies weakened against the dollar. Even so, Asia-Pacific remains an enormous and underpenetrated market given its population, and the Middle East-North Africa region has been among the fastest-growing anywhere, expanding about 7.2 percent a year. As incomes rise across these regions, the balance of the wellness economy is likely to tilt back toward Asia and the Gulf over the coming decade, even if North America keeps the lead in the near term.

How much people spend on wellness

Regional totals hide big differences in how much individuals spend. On a per person basis, the gap between the richest wellness markets and the rest is very wide.

A wide spending gap: the average North American spends about $6,029 a year on wellness, against $471 in Asia-Pacific.

In North America, per capita wellness spending reached about $6,029 in 2024, more than three times the European figure of $1,876 and many times higher than in other regions, where the averages are $607 in Latin America and the Caribbean, $471 in Asia-Pacific and $339 in the Middle East and North Africa. Globally, the average person spent about $831 on wellness in 2024, which the Global Wellness Institute notes is slightly more than average out-of-pocket spending on health goods and services. The gap points to significant room for growth as incomes rise in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The largest national wellness markets

At the country level the wellness economy is even more concentrated. The United States is the dominant market by a wide margin, as the chart of the top eight countries shows.

An American giant: the US wellness market of $2.1 trillion is more than double second-placed China.

The United States led the world at about $2.1 trillion in 2024, more than double China at $950 billion. Germany ($281 billion), Japan ($262 billion) and the United Kingdom ($261 billion) complete the top five, which together represent 58 percent of the global wellness economy. France, India and Canada follow. The US market has also been pulling away, growing about 7.9 percent a year since 2019, and its scale relative to the wider economy is explored in our data on the GDP of the United States.

The fastest growth, though, is happening elsewhere. Among large markets, India expanded about 11.3 percent a year from 2019 to 2024, climbing from tenth to seventh place, while the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia grew even faster at 14.3 and 12.2 percent. These figures point to where the next wave of wellness demand is likely to come from as middle classes expand across Asia and the Middle East.

Wellness as a share of the world economy

Because the wellness economy has grown faster than global output, its share of the world economy keeps rising. The chart tracks wellness as a percentage of global GDP.

Claiming more of the economy: wellness rose from about 5.75 percent of global GDP in 2019 to 6.1 percent in 2024, and is forecast to reach 7.1 percent by 2029.

Wellness represented about 5.75 percent of global GDP in 2019 and reached roughly 6.1 percent in 2024. The Global Wellness Institute projects the share will climb to about 7.1 percent by 2029 as the sector continues to outpace the wider economy. That steady rise reflects a structural shift: consumers are choosing to spend a growing slice of their income on health and self-care, a pattern that has held through recessions and the pandemic alike. For context on the broader picture, see our overview of the global economy.

What is fueling the wellness boom

Several long-running forces sit behind the numbers. Populations are ageing across most of the developed world, and rates of chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity are rising, pushing both individuals and governments toward prevention rather than treatment alone. As people live longer, they are also spending more on staying healthy through those extra years.

Technology has widened access. Fitness and wellness apps, wearable trackers and telehealth have brought wellness services to phones and homes, and the fitness technology market more than doubled to around $86 billion, helping the mental wellness sector in particular. Digital tools have made meditation, coaching, sleep support and remote fitness affordable and mainstream in a way that was not possible a decade ago.

Consumer attitudes have shifted too. Wellness is increasingly seen as an everyday priority rather than an occasional treat, spanning food choices, exercise, mental health, sleep and even where people live and work. Not every corner of the market moves in the same direction, though. The weight loss services market actually contracted slightly in 2024 as demand shifted toward new GLP-1 medications, a reminder that within a growing industry individual segments can be disrupted quickly.

Governments and employers have added momentum. Faced with the rising cost of chronic disease, many governments are investing more in prevention and screening, which feeds the public health and personalized medicine sector. Employers, meanwhile, have expanded wellbeing programs to attract and retain staff, even if workplace wellness remains one of the smaller sectors by revenue. On the consumer side, the pandemic durably raised interest in immunity, sleep, mental health and time spent outdoors, and much of that behaviour has stuck rather than faded, giving the industry a broad and lasting base of demand.

Where the wellness industry is heading

The Global Wellness Institute expects the momentum to continue. It projects the wellness economy will grow about 7.6 percent a year and approach $9.8 trillion by 2029, well above the roughly 4.5 percent growth forecast for global GDP. By then wellness could account for more than 7 percent of the world economy, and six of the eleven sectors are expected to individually exceed $1 trillion.

Growth is likely to be led by the same standouts, wellness real estate and mental wellness, alongside strong gains in personalized medicine, traditional and complementary medicine, wellness tourism and thermal springs. Geographically, the biggest opportunities lie outside the established markets, in fast-growing economies across Asia, the Middle East and Latin America where per capita wellness spending is still low. For businesses across health, hospitality, food, real estate and technology, the message from the data is consistent: wellness has become a durable, structural part of the global economy rather than a passing trend.

The wellness industry in numbers

A few figures capture the scale of the sector. The wellness economy is worth $6.8 trillion, spans 11 sectors, is led by the United States, and is projected to reach nearly $9.8 trillion by the end of the decade.

Taken together, these numbers show a market that is not only vast but still expanding faster than the economy around it, with its center of gravity slowly shifting toward new regions and new sectors.

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