GWI Doubles Wellness Real Estate Forecast to $1.8 Trillion by 2030

The Global Wellness Institute now projects that wellness real estate will reach $1.8 trillion by 2030, more than double the $876 billion the market hit in 2025 and nearly twelve times its $151 billion size in 2017. The forecast, presented May 12 at the Global Wellness Summit’s Wellness Real Estate & Communities Symposium in New York, confirms what the pipeline already suggested: no other sector in the wellness economy is growing this fast, and the gap between wellness real estate and overall construction is getting wider, not narrower.

For operators weighing whether to add sauna, cold plunge, or contrast therapy to their properties, the headline number matters less than the trend underneath it. Money is flowing into buildings designed around occupant health at a rate that dwarfs overall construction growth. The question for thermal operators is no longer whether a wellness amenity premium exists. It is how large that premium is, and how fast they need to move to capture it.

Key Facts

$876 billion: Current global wellness real estate market (2025), up from $151 billion in 2017

$1.8 trillion: GWI’s 2030 projection, a doubling in five years

23.6%: Average annual growth rate from 2019 to 2025, double the next fastest wellness sector

$254 billion: United States market, the largest single-country total in the world

23% vs. 3%: Wellness real estate growth (2024 to 2025) versus overall global construction

555,000+: Wellness-focused residential units in the Saudi Arabia and UAE pipeline

The Numbers Behind the Doubling

The trajectory is worth studying in full. Wellness real estate was a $151 billion market in 2017. By 2019 it had reached $246 billion. The pandemic barely dented it: the sector hit $711 billion by 2024 and $876 billion by 2025, a 23 percent jump in a single year. GWI projects it will cross $1 trillion for the first time in 2027, then sustain roughly 15 percent annual growth to hit $1.8 trillion by decade’s end.

That 23.6 percent average annual growth from 2019 to 2025 is the number that anchors the entire forecast. It is double the growth rate of the next fastest wellness economy category (wellness tourism, at 12.4 percent). In a year when overall global construction grew 3 percent, wellness real estate grew 23 percent. The gap is not a blip. It has held for six consecutive years.

GWI defines the category broadly: any built environment designed, built, and operated to support the well-being of occupants, visitors, and the surrounding community. The definition spans residential developments, hospitality properties, senior living campuses, and gym and spa facilities. A Manhattan luxury condo with an infrared sauna and a 300-unit assisted living campus with a full hydrotherapy circuit both count.

Where the Money Is Moving

Three regions account for more than 95 percent of the global total. Asia-Pacific leads at $350 billion, powered by 25.8 percent annual growth from 2019 to 2025. North America follows at $274 billion (18.3 percent growth). Europe sits at $205 billion.

At the country level, the United States holds the largest single-country market at $254 billion. China is second at $218 billion. The United Kingdom is third at $51 billion.

The growth-rate leaderboard tells a different story. Italy led all countries at 50.2 percent average annual growth from 2019 to 2025, followed by Spain at 46.1 percent and Saudi Arabia at 33.9 percent. China posted 30.5 percent. Singapore came in at 29 percent. These are not incremental gains. They represent entire national markets doubling or tripling every three to five years.

The Gulf Pipeline: 555,000 Units and Counting

The Middle East numbers deserve a separate look. Saudi Arabia’s wellness real estate market went from $200 million to $28 billion between 2017 and 2025, an 85 percent compound annual growth rate, the highest of any country in the world. The UAE grew from $3.3 billion to $14.6 billion over the same period, a 21 percent annual clip.

Behind those numbers sits a physical pipeline of more than 555,000 wellness-focused residential units planned or under construction across Saudi Arabia and the UAE. GWI’s new case studies highlight three projects that illustrate the scale: AMAALA Triple Bay on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast (nine wellness resorts and 160 for-sale residences), Riyadh’s Sports Boulevard (an 84-mile linear park with more than 32 million square feet of mixed-use development), and Ghaf Woods in Dubai (a 182-acre community with 5,000 residential units set within an 18.7-acre forest).

These are not hypothetical allocations in a government white paper. They are projects with architects, general contractors, and MEP specifications, many of which will need thermal amenity packages. For manufacturers weighing modular versus stick-built commercial sauna production, the Gulf pipeline represents a scale of demand that favors factory-built, containerized delivery. A single Saudi megaproject can absorb more sauna units than some European countries install in a year.

What GWI Counts (and What It Does Not)

A necessary caveat: the $1.8 trillion projection covers all wellness real estate, not thermal amenities specifically. GWI’s definition encompasses biophilic office buildings with circadian lighting, master-planned communities with walking trails, and hotel wellness wings, alongside dedicated sauna and hydrotherapy facilities. Thermal therapy is a fraction of this market, not the whole.

The May release does not break out that fraction. Segment-level data is scheduled for the full 2026 Wellness Economy Monitor, due in November. Until those numbers land, any claim about the specific size of the thermal amenity market within wellness real estate is an estimate, not a measurement.

That said, the direction of the estimate matters. In at least two verticals where published operator data exists (senior living and hospitality), thermal’s share of wellness amenity spend is growing faster than the broader category. Other industry observers have noted the same trend: wellness real estate’s growth is concentrated in exactly the property types where thermal amenities generate the most documented value.

The Thermal Operator’s Math

GWI’s topline gives operators the denominator. Published data from specific verticals starts to fill in the numerator.

In senior living, Ventas (one of the largest healthcare REITs in the United States) has reported a 6.5 percent increase in revenue per occupied room and a 530-basis-point improvement in occupancy at properties that added wellness amenities, including thermal therapy. FOX Rehabilitation’s published data shows that residents in assisted living communities with wellness programming stayed an average of 33 months compared to 23 months without it, a 43 percent improvement in length of stay. At $4,000 to $7,000 per month in a typical assisted living facility, those extra 10 months represent $40,000 to $70,000 in incremental revenue per resident.

The National Investment Center for Seniors Housing (NIC) and the International Council on Active Aging (ICAA) project that 71 percent of senior living communities will be wellness-centered by 2030. Research from DHD Chicago indicates that 80 percent of senior living decisions now involve adult children, a generation that expects thermal and recovery amenities as standard rather than premium.

In hospitality, the pattern holds. Properties adding dedicated thermal bathing suites report higher average daily rates and longer guest stays. The $35 million that Bathhouse raised from Imaginary Ventures to expand its urban bathhouse model signals where institutional capital sees the return.

Cross these data points against GWI’s $254 billion U.S. wellness real estate figure, and the math for thermal amenities starts to come into focus. If even a single-digit percentage of the U.S. wellness real estate pipeline specifies sauna or contrast therapy (and current senior living and hospitality trends suggest the share exceeds that), the addressable market for thermal equipment and installation runs well into the billions. For investors building a longevity thesis, the GWI data provides the macro frame. The operator data provides the proof.

Why It Matters

GWI’s forecast is the single most cited number in wellness real estate pitch decks, investor presentations, and municipal planning documents. Its doubling from $876 billion to $1.8 trillion in five years resets the baseline for every operator, manufacturer, and developer building a business case around thermal amenities. The forecast does not tell you exactly how large the sauna and contrast therapy market is within that $1.8 trillion. But it tells you the building category where thermal amenities generate the strongest documented ROI premiums is growing at 23.6 percent per year: nearly eight times faster than overall construction.

Bottom Line

Wellness real estate just became a $1.8 trillion conversation. GWI will not publish thermal’s specific share until November. Operators do not need to wait: the published data from Ventas, FOX Rehabilitation, and NIC/ICAA already shows that thermal amenities drive measurable revenue, occupancy, and retention premiums in the two verticals (senior living and hospitality) growing fastest within this forecast. The macro case is settled. The question for the sauna industry is whether supply chains, installer capacity, and product portfolios are ready for a market that doubles every five years.