$100,000 Wellness Retreats to Live Longer: The New Luxury Travel Craze

Resting on a briefcase, a mask connected to sensors promises to detect 23 biomarkers and biological indicators in just a few minutes, before delivering a program to improve health. “PNOË is a respiratory analysis device,” explains Panos Papadiamantis, the head of the company, which employs around a hundred people. “We assess, in functional terms, how well your lungs absorb oxygen, how effectively your heart pumps it, and how efficiently your cells take it up,” he adds.

The link to the worlds of tourism and hospitality may seem tenuous at first glance, and yet the company has already equipped Four Seasons hotels and has other orders in the hospitality sector. “The wellbeing and the longevity represent the new luxury. Consequently, I think wellness and hospitality will be inextricably linked in the future. I don’t believe it will be possible to sell luxury hospitality without tying it very closely to wellness,” the entrepreneur contends.

Beside the PNOË mask, there is a hyperbaric chamber with ultra-modern design, where the visitor can settle into a chic beige chair, an oxygen mask on the face, for a session under a pressure “equivalent to ten meters underwater,” explains David Gumbleton, representative for the HPO Tech brand. With the possibility to continue working, he notes, since tablets are connected inside the chamber.

The “Wellbeing and Appearance” Concern

At the end of the day, he asserts, are expected health benefits such as faster healing processes or reduced inflammation. These tools—often reserved for the medical sector or elite athletes—now find a place in luxury hotels, which can thus offer and monetize additional services.

“The hotel market used to be more about spas and the notion of indulging oneself. Today, people are seeking wellbeing. It is a market with very high growth,” analyzes David Gumbleton. And the hotel, equipped with these new technologies, becomes a destination in itself.

While the wellness sector represented last year as a whole around $2 trillion according to McKinsey, longevity has been thrust into the spotlight by American billionaire Bryan Johnson. It is attracting clientele who, for some, have shifted away from traditional luxury goods. According to a Bain & Company report, global luxury spending fell by 1 to 3% in the previous year compared with 2024. While goods suffered—especially leather goods and fashion—spending on experiences rose by 3% during that period, notably thanks to the wellness sector.

Scientific arguments are not all proven, but the movement is spreading: the Six Senses hotel group offers longevity-focused stays at certain destinations for several thousand euros per week, excluding accommodations. Four Seasons has partnered with Chi Longevity clinics, offering a genetic testing service to discover “how your body metabolizes nutrients in a unique way”.

“It is a demographic reality: the baby-boom generation is reaching retirement age”, notes Stéphane Durand, tourism specialist at the consultancy Voltere by Egis. “These are people with purchasing power, used to being major luxury consumers.” Not to mention “the concern for wellbeing and appearance. These are part of the society’s enduring trends”, he adds—provided they have the means, of course.

In Malta, entrepreneur Mark Weingard, head of the Iniala group, plans to launch in 2028 a four-week longevity program for entrepreneurs across his hotels… at a cost of $100,000. “Longevity is the buzzword right now. But many places do not implement it correctly”, he remarks.

Sardinia’s Secret: The Blue Zone Where People Live Longer

Far from the big cities where stress and pollution are sometimes more palpable than a speed bump at 80 km/h, there are scattered around the world places where life can feel so good that people grow old, even very old. But what do they have that is so magical as to let their inhabitants blow out hundreds of candles?

What is a “Blue Zone”?

In the early 2000s, Michel Poulain, a Belgian demographer concerned with the role of the elderly in our societies, and Gianni Pes, an Italian physician, studied the longevity of the Sardinian population and mapped the villages where the most centenarians live. One area stood out more than the others: the Barbagia-Ogliastra zone, in the Nuoro province.

The two researchers are said to have outlined it in blue, and the first “Blue Zone” would thus be born. The journalist Dan Buettner would subsequently popularize the concept in National Geographic in 2004, enabling other “Blue Zones” to be identified later:

  • Okinawa, Japan
  • Nicoya, Costa Rica
  • Ikaria, Greece
  • Loma Linda, California

But while Blue Zones are the subject of extensive research today, their interpretation remains debated. Some scientists argue that the concept has sometimes been greatly simplified, or even idealized, by the wellness industry.

Where is the Sardinian Blue Zone?

Contrary to a widespread belief, there is not a single Blue Zone in Sardinia covering the entire island. The area identified by Michel Poulain and Gianni Pes in the early 2000s lies in east-central Sardinia, in Ogliastra and Barbagia, in the Nuoro province.

Among the villages regularly cited: Villagrande Strisaili, Arzana, Talana, Baunei, Urzulei, Perdasdefogu, Tiana, Ovodda and Orgosolo.

Note that in southern Sardinia, three other villages stand out for their number of nonagenarians and centenarians: Seulo, Teulada, Orroli.

Then in 2025, another site joined the list of already identified Blue Zones: the municipality of Arzachena, in Gallura (northeast Sardinia). However, this claim does not rest on scientific recognition as established as that of the Barbagia-Ogliastra historic zone.

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Barcelona No Longer Welcomes Cruise Passengers in Transit


Barcelone souhaite relever dès 2027 la taxe touristique appliquée aux croisiéristes de transit afin d’atteindre un total de 14 euros par passager @Deposit-Photios - Photo by fotoall

CroisiEurope


Barcelona presses its strategy against overtourism… and now clearly targets transit cruises. In an interview granted to the local channel betevé, Mayor Jaume Collboni stated his aim to reduce to zero the number of cruise passengers who spend only a few hours in the city before returning to sea.

The socialist mayor now distinguishes two modelss: cruises that use Barcelona as the home port—with passengers who stay in hotels, fly in, or spend more on site, something Marseille hopes to develop—and ships making a simple port of call, accused of crowding public spaces without generating enough local economic benefits.

« Transit cruises make intensive use of public space without generating revenue », he said. To discourage this traffic, the municipality plans to sharply increase the taxation applied to short-stop passengers.


1.7 million transit cruise passengers in 2025

According to details provided by betevé, Barcelona aims to raise from 2027 the tourist tax levied on transit cruise passengers to a total of 14 euros per passenger. This amount would include the Catalan regional tax and the municipal surcharge. The additional revenue would be used in particular to fund public services and infrastructure used by visitors.

This new push fits into a broader strategy pursued by Barcelona to curb overtourism. The city and the port had already announced an agreement to reduce the number of cruise terminals from seven to five. The municipality also plans to phase out tourist apartments by 2028.

The issue remains particularly sensitive in Spain, where cruises represent a major economic engine. According to figures cited recently by the municipality, Barcelona hosted nearly four million cruise passengers in 2025, including about 1.7 million transit cruise passengers.