Ensuring health and wellness plays ever growing role in a globalized world of office work, large flows of information and external pressures. In the view of the above, many people are willing to get away from everyday problems and experience the nature. Thus, the development of “forest bathing” is one of the crucial trends of SpaFinder 2015 trends. This trend manifests itself in a range of highlights. Firstly, governments and parks tend to develop forest therapy centers, and there are more associations, aimed to promote forest medicine. Secondly, forest therapy starts to be formed as a specific direction of medicine. Thirdly, more doctors prescribe forest therapy, and, consequently, more “forest bathing” and forest therapy programs start to ne available at spas and wellness centers (Spafinder Wellness 5).
Forest therapy centers in Europe and North America tend to provide a broad range of services. Among the wellness programs, offered by such centers, one can mention forest therapy walking, meditation with nature, vision quests, as well as holistic healing experience. The holistic healing includes learning to identify edible wild plants, mixing herbal teas, warm water foot baths, aromatherapy, as well as cooking natural food. Therapy, offered by some of the centers, includes counseling, emotional freedom techniques, meditation, psychotherapy and addressing stress-related issues (e.g, stress, depression, panic disorder). Treatments tend to include chiropody, homeopathy, as well as nutritional and massage therapy.
The majority of customers like forest therapy. First of all, many customers underline a special peaceful and relaxing atmosphere one can experience in a forest that is also a natural habitat for different animals and birds. There are also customers that underline a combination of special atmosphere of a forest and an excellent quality of services. In this regard, the key word is “personalized”.
As forest bathing remains a luxury services, a special emphasis is made on tackling the needs and wants of each customer. Personalized approach to the provision of services and hospitality lead to the fact that customers associate visiting forest bathing and therapy sites with “at home experience”. Such reviews are quite promising for business owners, because they are linked to the likelihood of customers’ coming back to the same places.
As many forest therapy centers offer accommodation and catering, many of the reviews emphasize the quality of rooms and natural food. Communication with staff and other guests is also valued. On the contrary, a highly limited number of guests characterize their experience of therapy and treatments. Quite seldom they just briefly mention therapy- and treatment-related experiences, such as a relaxing massage or marvelous meditation experience.
Therefore, it can be concluded that people customer tend to view forest therapy as a rest and relaxation, rather than wellness, therapy and treatment destination. However, forest-related destinations can still be viewed as unique sites, aimed to provide multiple experiences, ranging from simple rest and relaxation to specific treatments and learning experience (e.g., cooking natural food).
I would claim that an interest in forest bathing and forest therapy will continue to raise. There are a lot of arguments to substantiate this statement. First of all, the common lifestyle of many modern urban residents does not provide any space for relaxation. People work extremely long hours and continuously suffer multiple pressures due to excessive workload and ever growing competition between individuals. Subsequently, getting an opportunity to rest, people tend to prefer passive rest to active one. In this light, a forest experience can be viewed as an activity, balancing passive rest (e.g, mediation, massage) with the elements of fitness activities.
Secondly, it is important to emphasize that excessive workload and continuous exposure to various pressures leads to stress and stress-related conditions (e.g., depression, panic disorder). The natural atmosphere of a forest is of high use for treating stress-related conditions and helping individuals to relax. As competition within a society becomes ever more intense, the number of individuals, requiring psychological aid and related services, will inevitably grow.
Furthermore, the competition between spa and wellness centers, offering “forest bathing” and different types of forest therapy and treatments will inevitably lead to the fact that these services will become more affordable. Consequently, there will be more potential customers, able t invest the required amount of money into relaxing in a forest and using center-specific services.
The growing number of the abovementioned centers will also lead to the fact that the centers will use promotional activities in order to attract new customers. Even with the help of standard advertizing techniques, the centers will promote forest experiences as such and attract new customers. The establishment of loyalty programs can also help centers make their services more popular. Finally, it is important to mention that doctors tend to view forest experiences as a useful means to address a variety of conditions. If doctors continue to prescribe forest therapy to ever more individuals, the trend will surely sustain.
If I were a spa director, I would examine a range of factors before deciding whether or not it is worth investing into the development of forest-related services. Foremost, I would start by finding out whether there is a forest somewhere near my spa centre. If there was a forest nearby, I would try to find out whether there are any significant legal obstacles preventing me from using this forest to provide services, associated with “forest bathing” and/or forest therapy and treatment (e.g., ownership of land, special conditions of renting parts of the forest etc.) If I find out that the legal obstacles can be overcome without enormous investments of time and money, I will proceed by studying the competition-related issues. In this regard, it will be important for me to see whether there is already a lot of spas, offering forest-related services nearby and whether I have a chance to differentiate.
The availability of a forest, insignificance of legal obstacles to be overcome and the presence of a market niche are major factors that will lead me to getting engaged into the provision of forest-related services. When designing the product strategy, I will pay special attention to the fact that the above services can be seen as a mixture of rest, wellness and treatment experience. Therefore, I will think about the accommodation for guests, coming from remote areas, and high-quality catering.
Furthermore, apart from providing a broad range of therapies and treatments, it is also important to provide clients with a chance to entertain themselves. If a newly established forest centre becomes similar to a touristic destination, offering a broad range of services of different groups (especially, families and children), it will necessarily be able to attract clients and grow to a successful venture.
Works cited
Spafinder Wellness 365. Top 10 Global Spa& Wellness Trends Forecast, 2015. Web. 18 February 2016
