Wellness, as a global industry, is projected to reach $8.5 trillion in 2027, as per US-based Global Wellness Institute (GWI), growing at an annual rate of 8.6%. Not just that, the wellness industry represents over 6% of the global GDP.
These big numbers are not really surprising, since wellness now pervades all aspects of our lives—from what we eat, to what we read, the content we consume, to even how we unwind.
In India, too, the market is booming. As per the India Watch Analysis, the Indian wellness market is expected to cross $72 billion by 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28%.
As Nikhil Kapur, founder and director of Atmantan Wellness Centre, located in Sahyadri hills in Maharashtra, says: “Once just a trend, prioritising wellness has now become a fundamental aspect of modern living. People are increasingly making choices that have an impact on their overall well-being.”
And, it is not just international tourists flocking to India for wellness retreats; Indians are very much enamoured too. Sidarth Dominic, CEO of CGH Earth Wellness, a wellness hospitality brand, says: “Prior to Covid, Indian seekers represented less than 5% of our clients. Today, they account for over 45%.”
Consumers are becoming more discerning too. Anmol Ahluwalia, area director of operations, and general manager at New Delhi’s Taj Mahal hotel, an IHCL property, says: “What’s also a game-changer is the demand for personalised experiences and products. Not just that, people also want to ensure that the offerings they’re investing in are sustainable.”
But how did this phenomenon come about? Was it the pandemic, or social media and influencer marketing?The answer is perhaps all of this, and more. Shweta Jain, chief sales and marketing officer at The Leela Palaces, Hotels, and Resorts, believes people have started increasingly viewing wellness as “essential to every dimension of their lives—extending beyond physical health to include mental, emotional, and even spiritual well-being”.
Also, there’s no one demographic at play here. For Aujasya, the wellness offering by Leela, millennial and Gen-Z travellers, along with those on business leisure trips, make up the bulk of clients. At CGH Earth Wellness, too, there is a shift toward younger guests, shares Dominic.
Ahluwalia of IHCL shares that they even have Innergise Green Meetings, an initiative encompassing wellness for sustainable business conferences and events. “Young professionals, in the 25-40 age group, form a significant segment of our wellness-seeking guests, besides corporate leaders and international guests,” he says. According to him, the pandemic undoubtedly accelerated this approach, but a transformation was already underway. “Guests today understand that true luxury lies in experiences that enhance their quality of life,” he adds.
Kapur of Atmantan shares that retreats traditionally attracted more women, but now their male to female ratio of guests is at 52:48, and about 70% clientele is in the 40-65 years’ age group.
SD Nandakumar, president and country head of holidays and corporate tours at SOTC Travel, says, “We are witnessing an uptick of 25% y-o-y for rejuvenation and wellness getaways, yoga tourism, and digital detox holidays.”
Rajeev Kale, president and country head of holidays, MICE, visa at Thomas Cook (India), offers, “Trends like sleep tourism and spa wellness therapy are increasingly popular. Travellers are also opting for unconventional places like Bikaner, Gokarna, and Haridwar, which provide peaceful retreats.”
It’s not just the hospitality sector though. Wellness, for eternity, has been a driving factor behind what we eat, but, in the past few years, it has come into itself as a market too. Keshav Biyani, the co-founder of The Good Bug, a brand that makes probiotics, says that the market for gut-focused supplements is becoming bigger than ever before. “Post-pandemic, people are seeking proactive ways to address nutritional gaps and improve overall well-being,” he adds.
Earlier this year, a report by Avendus Capital noted that India’s health and wellness food market is growing at a CAGR of 20% and is expected to be worth $30 billion by 2026, besides being one of the fastest growing globally.
Even a market intelligence report recently published by the government of Canada read, “The health and wellness food and beverage sector has grown faster in India than in the rest of Asia.”
Shauravi Malik, co-founder of Wholsum Foods, a Gurugram-based D2C food brand, shares that the demand for personalised products is growing too, as is the demand for healthy snacking options.
People now also want to opt for clean beauty, which has captured at least 5-10% of the skincare market in India, as per estimates.
But is the wellness industry going to have a sustained charm in the coming days as well? What’s the potential for future growth in this space? Jain of Leela offers, “Virtuoso’s 2024 Luxe Report reveals that 94% of affluent travellers are now integrating wellness into their journeys, with nearly half willing to spend between $5,000 and $10,000 per trip on wellness-focused experiences. This demonstrates a willingness to invest deeply in personal well-being.”
Mayank Rastogi, markets leader, strategy and transaction practice, EY India, says, “The wellness industry has always been very profitable in India. Players like Dabur, Himalaya, Emami, and Baidyanath have built large-scale businesses that are very profitable. With health becoming a key focus, a plethora of companies have also jumped in bringing differentiated products appealing to the new-age consumer.”
“The sector is also now attracting major investments as this space is one of the fastest growing consumption categories globally,” adds Rastogi.
There’s also space for even more sectors that the wellness industry could tap into. Rastogi says that even in real estate, there is big demand for living spaces that promote health and well-being.
‘Wellness business will boom if Ayush visas, insurance happen’
At a time when foreign tourist inflows haven’t matched pre-pandemic levels, and domestic tourists are opting for visa-free foreign locales instead of popular Indian vacation spots, Dominic of CGH Earth Wellness, which runs ayurveda wellness centres in Kerala, says business is booming. “It is Indian offerings like traditional ayurveda and naturopathy that can prove to be counters to free visas,” he says.
In fact, he shares that the government is considering ayush visas, on the lines of medical visas, and preventive healthcare, including traditional medicines, might come under the purview of insurance.
That might be a complete gamechanger for wellness centres.
Running four centres, three of which are NABH-certified hospitals, he says people are willing to accept strict restrictions, including alcohol and meat, to undergo treatments. “My family runs hotels, airline catering and other businesses too. But the wellness centre vertical is most profitable,” he says. Centred in south India for now, mainly Kerala, the brand is opening a naturopathy centre in Uttarakhand later this year in its first northern foray. Foreign locations are not under consideration for now, though the brand might be interested in a property in Bhutan.
The fine print
If you ever find yourself Googling ‘most sold books of all time’ (like this reporter did on a random day), you might come to realise that a 100 million copies of the Bible are printed each year, and that over 5 billion copies of the book have been sold globally, making it top all best-seller charts ever made.
However, if you’re a trivia or books enthusiast, this might not be news to you. But do you know what other category/genre, apart from religious books, is the most sold in the publishing world? It’s the self-help books. In 2023, according to data by market research company Custom Market Insight, the global self-improvement market was valued at $41.2 billion, and is estimated to be worth $81.6 billion by 2032. In fact, in 2025, the global market size for self-help books is set to reach $14 billion.
While a report by TechNavio, a market research firm, notes that the global size of the books market is set to increase by “$38.3 billion at a compound annual growth rate of 5.91% between 2023 and 2028,” it adds, “self-development literature holds a significant presence.”
In 2015, Forbes had cited publishers and retailers as saying that about 9.5 million self-help books were sold in India each year. In the last decade, Abhay Singh, senior manager for marketing and publicity at Simon & Schuster, says this number has increased manifold. Citing numbers from Nielsen BookData, Singh says that around 2-3 million self-help books were sold in India in 2024, and the self-help books space was valued at over Rs 625 million in 2024.
Poulomi Chatterjee, the executive publisher and rights director at HarperCollins India, says, “The growth of the self-help category has been steady for many years now, and steadily rising in recent years. Data from 2023 suggests that close to 40% of the non-fiction market in India comes from a mix of the non-fiction/self-help genres.”
Singh of Simon & Schuster nods in agreement. He says, “Self-help is also a growing space, with a lot of publishers and writers alike making a beeline for it. It’s because of the primacy that health has taken in everyone’s lives that people are now looking for a way, any way, to be better.”
Kapish Mehra, managing director of Rupa Publications, attributes these numbers to people’s “competitiveness, their desire to upgrade and that to be better than others,” which he says has always driven the sale of self-help books.
Even for publishers, self-help books, as a genre, have been cutting across different age groups. For young people picking up self-help books, subsets like mental health, career, and upskilling sell more. For people who’re more settled in their careers, subsets on health, psychology, and spirituality sell more, Mehra of Rupa Publications says.
Interestingly, a big change happened in this space post Covid-19 too. In 2022, Nielsen, a media audience measurement firm, released a report titled Impact of Covid-19 on the India Book Consumer that found that more people than ever had started picking up and reading self-help and personal development books.
Chatterjee of HarperCollins adds, “We now have more books that relate ancient Ayurvedic concepts to modern living, address physical and mental health, sexual health and wellness, family relationships, LGBTQIA+ relationships and issues, personal finance—all very specifically addressing the Indian context. While books like Attitude is Everything, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, The Alchemist and Think Like a Monk have continued to sell well for us, we’ve recently had great success with books that directly speak to the Indian readership and are specific to their lives and interests like Monika Halan’s iconic books on personal finance, The Power of One Thought by BK Shivani, The Sex Book by Leeza Mangaldas, and Unashamed by Neha Bhatt.”