Wellness has become core hotel inventory. So why are we still selling it like an add-on? By Simon Bullingham, CEO of Journey.
Wellness has moved a long way from the days when a spa was simply another hotel amenity. For many luxury properties, it now shapes the proposition and increasingly influences the booking decision itself, as industry research shows that the experiences available at a hotel are becoming part of what drives guests to choose the property in the first place.
Hotels have invested in better facilities, wider treatment menus and more ambitious wellness programmes, but the way they think about selling and managing those experiences hasn’t always caught up.
Rooms are treated as inventory, while wellness is still too often treated as a service. Accommodation is priced, distributed and measured with precision, yet spa treatments, classes and other wellness experiences can still be buried in menus, leaving guests to call, make separate bookings or navigate a fragmented journey that sits apart from the rest of their stay.
The opportunity sits within a much bigger shift in travel. McKinsey and Skift estimate that travellers spend $1.1–$1.3 trillion on experiences each year, with almost half of experience bookings still made offline. For hotels, this highlights the opportunity to make experiences easier to discover and book digitally – bringing wellness and other services into the same seamless journey as the room itself.
And if wellness is increasingly influencing where guests choose to stay, it needs to be managed with the same commercial and operational discipline hotels already apply to their rooms.
Hotels need to think more like retailers
Retailers understand that if you want people to buy something, it needs to be easy to find, understand and purchase. Hotels already do this well with rooms, giving guests clear choices, live availability and a straightforward booking journey.
But that same approach doesn’t always extend to wellness. A treatment might be listed without showing when it’s available, a spa day might still require a phone call, or a package might sit in a completely separate booking journey, even though the guest sees it as part of the same stay.
Thinking more like an ecommerce business changes that. It means looking at how wellness inventory is presented, how experiences are packaged and promoted, how easy they are to book, and how different parts of the stay can be brought together in one seamless journey.
But putting wellness online is only part of the answer. The operation behind it needs to be able to deliver what the guest has bought, too.
Why wellness is still sold like an add-on
Part of the challenge is structural. Hotels have traditionally built their commercial and operational systems around the room, with the PMS acting as the backbone for managing accommodation. But as the role of experiences grows, wellness and other ancillary services need to be managed with the same level of structure and visibility. An Experience Management System (EMS) provides that operational backbone for experiences, enabling hotels to manage, market and sell wellness as part of the guest journey from the outset, rather than introducing it only after the room has been booked.
That model reflects a time when spa and wellness played a smaller role in the hotel proposition. Guest behaviour is changing, though. Journey’s own data shows that guests are willing to spend on wellness when it is easy to find and book, with spa treatments and facility passes among the most popular extras added to room bookings.
Even the language hotels use can reinforce the idea that wellness comes second. Treatments, classes and spa access are often described as “extras” or “add-ons”, despite being a key part of the reason some guests choose to stay. For someone booking a wellness break, the treatment programme can be just as important as the bedroom – while a hotel’s wellness offering can also be the factor that sets it apart when a guest is choosing between properties.
Retailers would rarely leave a product that helped draw a customer to the store until the final stages of checkout. Hotels should consider wellness in the same way, thinking carefully about where it appears in the discovery and booking journey and whether guests can secure the experiences that helped persuade them to choose the property.
This also calls for a broader view of performance. Measuring wellness solely as ancillary revenue after the room has been sold can understate its wider commercial contribution. Skift research in 2026 suggests travellers are increasingly researching experiences first, then choosing a destination, flights and finally accommodation. With 43% saying experiences are the most important part of a trip, hotels need to understand how wellness can influence demand, support the booking decision and drive greater value across the guest relationship.
Wellness deserves its own commercial lens
Hotels have become sophisticated at measuring room performance, and wellness should be viewed with the same commercial focus.
Metrics such as utilisation, conversion, attach rate and total guest spend can help hotels understand the role wellness plays in the wider performance of the property. Looking at which experiences are bought together, when demand is strongest and where capacity is going unused can also reveal opportunities to improve performance.
That creates a much more useful picture than simply asking whether the spa is busy. A full treatment diary doesn’t necessarily mean pricing or the mix of treatments is right, while quieter periods could present opportunities to package, promote or sell experiences differently.
It also means bringing more teams into the conversation. Spa teams may be responsible for delivering the experience, but revenue, ecommerce and marketing all have a role to play in how wellness is positioned, priced and sold.
The technology needs to catch up with the experience
As wellness takes on a greater commercial role, the technology supporting it needs to give teams a clearer view of the people, spaces and resources behind every booking. In many hotels, that information still sits across separate systems, with spa diaries, guest data and payments managed in different places.
A more connected approach gives operators a clearer, real-time view of staff, treatment rooms, facilities and other resources, while linking into the systems already used across the property. This makes the day-to-day running of wellness simpler and gives teams a better picture of how it is performing commercially.
It also helps bridge the gap between what the guest is promised and what the hotel can actually deliver. If wellness is being actively sold as part of the stay, the booking journey needs to reflect what the property can genuinely offer.
Hotels have invested heavily in making wellness a reason to choose their property, but the systems and structures supporting it have often remained room-focused. One of Journey’s partners, Gisborough Hall, is taking a different approach, appointing an ex-Revenue Director as Spa Director to bring greater commercial focus to the operation. As wellness plays a bigger role in both the booking decision and the value of the stay, hotels need the infrastructure to match – with technology taking on much of the operational heavy lifting and giving teams the tools to manage wellness with the same commercial focus and discipline as rooms.