Sri Lanka is renowned for its rich Ayurvedic sector and holistic healing. Post-Covid, the health and wellness tourism sector is bound to thrive seeing as many citizens of the world have now become more conscious about their bodies’ health and staying fit.
Among the recommendations made by the International Trade Centre for the Development of Medical and Wellness Tourism, Sri Lanka has positioned itself as one of the authentic Ayurveda wellness destinations in the world. With wellness tourism rapidly growing to become a promising sector, Sri Lanka has huge potential of becoming a wellness tourism hub.
Visitors to wellness establishments in Sri Lanka are focused on treatment for weight loss, stress relief, and detoxing to get away from their busy and stressful lifestyles in their countries. Most tourists like to experience the powers of meditation and yoga to maintain perfect mental health and a healthy lifestyle.
To promote these elements of wellness tourism, luxury spas, Ayurveda products, herbal treatments, and meditation centres are available in star-class hotels, boutique hotels, and luxury villas across the island. Each of these establishments is closely monitored by Sri Lanka Tourism to ensure the quality of products and services.
What is health and wellness tourism?
While wellness tourism was once strictly focused on and restricted to pampering spa vacations, nowadays wellness travel includes many combinations of healthy experiences including eating, cooking, exercise, and meditation.
According to the Sri Lanka Tourism website, the wellness tourism sector in Sri Lanka is heading towards rapid growth, but has to be nurtured carefully in collaboration with industry stakeholders from both the Government and private sector. The Government has recognised wellness tourism as a key sector for investors. Wellness tourism can be considered a niche market for the country because of its potential to attract foreign investment and revenue generation.
Brunch spoke to a few key personalities to get their expert opinion on health and wellness tourism taking off in Sri Lanka once the pandemic simmers down.
SL has plans for wellness tourism
In conversation with personal trainer-turned-yoga instructor Aaron Wickramasekara, he informed us that he was supposed to have a retreat in two weeks that he had to cancel due to the pandemic, but just after putting up one story about the retreat, it was sold out to 25 people within two hours, and that’s just within Colombo. He added that when he could, he used to travel the world conducting training. He returned last year, but all of his students are eagerly waiting to come to Sri Lanka to continue their training, thus highlighting the potential for tourism focused on wellness.
Talking about what Sri Lanka has to offer in terms of wellness tourism, Wickramasekara commented: “Hotels have yoga on offer to get tourists to come to stay the night. It is a great way to attract expats and tourists to the country.”
“It’s sad to say this, but in Sri Lanka, I realised no one focused on the locals; no one tried to get the local market involved,” he expressed, speaking of wellness tourism in terms of local communities. He added that now since there are no tourists coming in, many locals are getting into understanding what yoga is, so once tourism picks up again and spas and retreats open up, we will begin seeing more locals taking part.
Wickramasekara also observed that the Government is doing quite a lot to promote health and wellness tourism in the country, as it has always been one of the main attractions in Sri Lanka, adding that they should keep promoting it.
We asked him what he thinks the future holds for Sri Lanka in terms of wellness tourism, to which he stated: “I know for a fact that there are a lot of projects coming, in which I’m a consultant for, so once they open up, they will really promote the Ayurvedic and holistic aspects of Sri Lanka. We are just waiting for tourism to boot up again to start promotions. because right now we can’t even advertise them – tourism is dead right now.”
We have all the key ingredients to make it an ideal wellness hotspot
Talking to Sathya Yoga and Wellness Founder Rekha Krishnamoorthy on whether Sri Lanka can find a niche market in health and wellness tourism post-Covid, she commented that once the global travel market resumes normalcy, she believes Sri Lanka has a huge potential of being a niche wellness tourism destination.
“Sri Lanka has all the key ingredients needed to make it an ideal wellness hotspot, with abundant access to traditional Ayurvedic sciences and its array of breathtaking and serene wellness retreat spots,” she added.
Krishnamoorthy added that the topic of health and wellness tourism is something she is very passionate about, and is one that she has discussed in length with many people that are willing to humour her. Elaborating on the subject, she said: “Sri Lanka is in a prime position to be one of the leading wellness destinations in South Asia. Not only does Sri Lanka have its own Ayurvedic traditions that date back over 3,000 years and have been passed down through the generations, it also has the ancient wisdom and healing tradition of their medicine men, also known as the Hela Wedakama.” It has long been common in many Sri Lankan households to visit an Ayurvedic practitioner or a Hela Wedakaman when suffering from both a physical or even mental ailment.
We asked her if, in her opinion, she would say that Covid has made people more concerned about their body, both physically and health-wise, to which she stated: “Yes, certainly, within my own student base and friends’ circle, I have noticed that over the last year, people have started to become a lot more health-conscious – wanting to take better care of their body and mind.”
She observed that particularly the possibility of falling ill, or even of death, has made people reassess how to prioritise their health and what they can do to enhance their immunity and overall wellbeing, which is bound to open up opportunities for health and wellness tourism in the country.
Sharing her knowledge on how beneficial yoga is in terms of staying healthy, she explained that when you say yoga, people often think of physical health; however, yoga works beyond just the physical realm. The classical practice of Hatha Yoga offers the opportunity to transform one’s life from within, in a more profound and holistic way that is not purely limited to the physical. Rather, she commented, it works on the level of your body, mind, energies, and more; bringing certain stability to the body and a deep sense of ease to the mind.
“Yoga is beyond the bending and twisting of our bodies, which is a common misconception. The word yoga literally means ‘union’. This definition has several interpretations. In the classical yogic sciences, the path of yoga is to find the union within ourselves – to restore our bodies and energies to their natural state so that we as human beings can function at our optimum, and lead more balanced and joyful lives.”
Krishnamoorthy stated that in order to further wellness tourism, she has approached one of the leading hotel chains about promoting wellness tourism in Sri Lanka and holistic healing, adding that she truly believes in it and wishes the Government would do more to promote it.
An organic movement is needed
Finally, we spoke to homeopathic practitioner and yoga teacher Shobana Cooke on the matter, who commented that given our history in Ayurvedic care and our roots with yoga, our healing systems are very well positioned. She highlighted that the biggest challenge would be that even though we have recognised alternative practitioners, they have not been given the chance to take a serious role in Covid management.
We asked her if she thinks that Covid will make people take their health in terms of holistic healing more seriously, to which she commented that yes they would, but there needs to be an organic local movement for locals to be the ambassadors for that, so we can attract foreigners based on the authentic local lifestyle.
“It should not be just a thing we’re selling or promoting. We as citizens should advocate these practices as preventive care so this would be beneficial for tourism,” she noted.
We pointed out that many people scoff at the concept of holistic healing, and asked her how we can change that. “It is wrong of them to think such a thing because in Sri Lanka, we have government bodies like the Indigenous Medicine Ministry that governs all policies relating to the holistic medical systems; unani, homeopathy, and Siddha-Ayurveda are legitimate medical systems that are recognised and there are parliamentary acts to govern it, so it is a legitimate system.” She added that we need to use that to benefit alternative medicine and holistic care.
