A week’s R&R in the Caribbean or the Maldives used to be the ultimate out-of-office brag for high-flyers. They’d return to work satisfied with more air miles, bronzed limbs and lowered shoulders. But these days, a fast fix won’t cut it. The elite are increasingly seeking out four to seven-day retreats where bottomless cocktails and sun lounging are eschewed in favour of stringent, nutritionally maximised diets and being strapped into space-age machines for everything from skin analysis to biohacking treatments. For many one percenters, it’s a case of: if you didn’t shave years off your biological age, did you even go on holiday?
It comes at a time when the phrase ‘health is wealth’ has become more literal than ever, with the wellness industry projected to be worth a whopping £7 trillion by 2029. And to meet the appetite for these trips, a slew of new high-end medical spas have thrown open their doors in 2025, from ZEM Wellness Clinic Altea, Spain, to Medi-Spa at Royal Mansour Tamuda Bay, Morocco, which join stalwarts such as SHA Wellness clinics, founded in 2008. Some charge upwards of a thousand euros a day for longevity programmes administered by world-class physicians, chefs and personal trainers — and now, it seems, AI.
