Wellness is no longer something guests do on holiday.
It’s something they expect to be supported in, from the moment they book to long after they leave.
In this episode, I’m joined by Emma Sleight, Head of Content at The World’s 50 Best Hotels, to explore how hospitality is being reshaped by changing guest expectations, deeper definitions of wellness, and a growing demand for meaning, connection, and place-led experience.
This is a conversation for anyone building, operating, or advising hotels and destinations that want to stay relevant in the next decade of travel.
Emma’s career has always revolved around storytelling across journalism, food, travel, and global brands. Today, she sits at the intersection of insight and influence, overseeing content, voting academies, and industry narratives for one of hospitality’s most powerful global platforms.
From that vantage point, she sees patterns long before they become trends.
In this conversation, we unpack what Emma and her team are seeing across continents, cultures, and property types, and why the future of hospitality is no longer about “adding” wellness, sustainability, or design, but about integrating them into a coherent ecosystem that actually serves the guest.
Here are the 3 things we uncover in this episode:
1.- Why hospitality has shifted from experiences to ecosystems
Guests no longer choose hotels based on rooms alone. They build entire journeys around singular experiences: wellness rituals, food philosophies, landscapes, or cultural connection. Hotels are now part of a much wider, more intentional travel ecosystem.
2.- How wellness has moved from spa amenity to strategic differentiator
“Wellness” is no longer a spa menu or a gym in the basement. Emma shares how leading hotels are embedding wellbeing across design, food, sleep, movement, and emotional experience, often rooted in local culture and backed by science.
3.- What the World’s 50 Best is really responding to right now
From new award categories to the expansion of discovery platforms, Emma explains how diversity, authenticity, sustainability, and place-based storytelling are shaping what gets recognized, and why smaller destinations and secondary cities are increasingly coming into focus.
By the end of the episode you’ll understand why:
→ Wellness and sustainability are now baseline expectations, not “nice-to-haves”
→ The most compelling hotels start with who they are before deciding what they offer
→ Future-ready hospitality brands design for emotion, memory, and meaning, not just aesthetics or trends
And why the hotels that endure will be the ones that build clarity, coherence, and credibility into every layer of the guest journey.
