By Our Staff Writer
The Global Wellness Summit(GWS), the foremost gathering of leaders in the global wellness economy, will hold its milestone 20th-anniversary event at the Angsana Laguna Phuket in Thailand from November 10-13, 2026.
With the theme ‘The Science, Art and Soul of Wellness’, the agenda for the event aims to tackle the question, “Why Asia, why now?”. Speakers are slated to discuss not only the biggest opportunities across Asia’s fast-growing wellness economy, but how Asia’s unique wellness approaches and innovations are critical to understanding the broader future of wellness.
CEOs of wellness companies, doctors and academics, tech leaders, and policymakers will help delegates grasp why Asia is key to understanding the future of wellness. If Asia was first to experience plummeting birth rates and fast-aging populations (now rewriting the world), the region is becoming a living laboratory for solving for healthier longevity (healthspan).
“Asia is the primary growth engine for the future of travel, luxury and wellness because of the unmatched expansion of its middle class and wealth creation, infrastructure investments, economic resilience and scale, and rapid technology advancement,” said Cathy Feliciano-Chon, a co-chair of this year’s conference and managing partner at FINN Partners Greater China.
“It also faces many challenges, with declining fertility rates and a ‘silver tsunami’ – issues that all intersect with the future of wellness, prevention and longevity. Asia is at the nexus of both these opportunities and challenges,” she said.
The conference will explore the many innovations underway – whether in government policy or at wellness destinations. It will also highlight how Asia is now out in front with longevity clinics and resorts that marry cutting-edge longevity science and diagnostics with ancient healing modalities – to create a true medical-wellness paradigm.
The focus will be on Asia’s distinct wellness travel, spa, beauty, traditional medicine, wellness real estate, architecture and design, and policy sectors. Experts will share lessons learned from South Korea’s astounding K-Beauty boom, where a million people a year travel there for aesthetic services.
Asia is trailblazing the future of longevity with a distinctly more integrative approach. Its millennia-old, prevention-focused traditional medical systems – such as TCM and Ayurveda – forged the modern wellness movement by bringing meditation, yoga, plant-based medicines, spirituality and nature-as-healing to the world.
Asia-Pacific’s wellness market, which was hit hardest and longest by the pandemic, is now roaring back. It has reportedly reached $2 trillion for the first time, and its estimated 9.3 percent annual growth in 2024 makes it tied with Europe as the global wellness market growth ‘star’.
