Omtrips

Omtrips Weekly · #9 · 21 October 2026

Omtrips Weekly, Edition 9: Aftercare that works, what your blood says about aging, and a church cleared to brew ayahuasca

Seventeen stories this week, and a new section: Biohacking and Longevity, covering the clinical end of longevity and the recovery science behind the equipment everyone is buying. Our Big Story picks up where last week left off. The first Global Retreat Report scored post-retreat support at 4.1 out of 10, so we went looking for the properties already solving it, and found five, from three months of physician consultations to a NZ$49 monthly membership. Also an 18,476-person study on what blood metabolites really say about aging, a twelve-month psilocybin trial whose advantage quietly faded, and new stays from the Okavango Delta to Lapland.

The Big Story

Five properties show what aftercare looks like when it actually works

Spa Business16 Oct 2026

A useful roundup for any host wondering what to build after checkout. Tulah in Kerala sends guests home with a physician debrief, three months of consultations and an app; Layan Life by Anantara schedules doctor calls at one, three and six months, scaling the number to the length of stay; Kamalaya Connect runs remote programs completed within 90 days, from a US$69 sleep introduction to a US$1,886 immune support course. Beyond by Banyan Group sells three months of digital access with no stay attached at all, and Aro Ha in New Zealand offers lifetime access to its habit program for NZ$349 or a NZ$49 monthly circle. Five different answers to the same question, and three of them are revenue lines rather than goodwill.

Retreats

Soak Bathhouse's founders take over a Gold Coast retreat with six new programs

Time Out Australia22 Oct 2026

Niki and Alexis Dean, the couple behind the Soak Bathhouse group, have bought EcoView Retreat in the Tallebudgera Valley, about 25 minutes inland from Gold Coast Airport. The property runs to 15 eco cabins sleeping up to 30 guests, a panoramic pool, infrared saunas, indoor and outdoor gyms, a yoga pavilion and private bushwalking trails, and it will host six signature retreats named Trip, Joy, Quest, Dream, Rise and Love. The first, from late November, pairs holotropic breathwork and meditation with music, movement, guided shamanic journeying and fire ceremonies, and the operators are explicit that it is done without drugs. Darryn Bonhomme, formerly executive chef at Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat, takes over the food, and Niki Dean's pitch is a confident one: the retreat industry is ready for its next evolution.

The Barai Hua Hin reopens with a consultation first and follow-ups at 7, 15 and 45 days

Spa Business14 Oct 2026

The 98-room beachfront property on Thailand's Khao Takiap coastline has relaunched as the first Unbound Collection by Hyatt address in Thailand, twenty years after its original Barai Spa opened. Every stay now starts with a 45-minute consultation combining body composition analysis with Traditional Chinese Medicine pulse and tongue diagnosis, and guests are contacted again at 7, 15 and 45 days after they leave. Treatments are organized by the four elements, with five retreats available in one, three, five or seven day formats, from a TCM and longevity track to a Muay Thai led fitness kick-starter. Resident practitioner Dr Chuthamat Srinoi put the thinking plainly: wellness is not about following a standard program.

Biohacking & Longevity

Blood metabolites tracked aging in 18,476 people, and flagged who later got sick

News Medical18 Oct 2026

Six centers in Shanghai profiled plasma metabolites across 18,476 people aged twelve months to 96 years, narrowing 232 metabolite features to a panel of 56 that carried most of the age signal, published in Science Translational Medicine. People whose metabolomic aging ran ahead of their birthdays were more likely to develop diabetes, hypertension and fatty liver disease, and carried a higher all-cause mortality risk. Exercise and mixed grains tracked with lower values, while smoking, shift work and heavy intake of processed meat, organ meat and fried food tracked with higher ones. The authors are careful, and so are we: the study is observational, the population is largely Chinese, the improvement over routine blood markers was modest, and none of it establishes that a given food or habit moves biological aging. Useful background for anyone whose spa menu has started offering biological age testing.

A seven-technology longevity treatment debuts in the Caribbean

RUS Tourism News12 Oct 2026

Cap Juluca, A Belmond Hotel reopened on Maundays Bay in Anguilla on 10 October for the winter season, with rates from about US$1,095 a night, and its Spa by Guerlain is introducing Longeviskin. Belmond calls it the first treatment of its kind in the Caribbean and Latin America, combining radiofrequency, micropeeling, LED, microcurrents, cryogenics, plasma and ultrasound in a single device. Framed honestly, these are aesthetic skincare claims rather than evidence that anything slows aging, which is worth holding onto as longevity language spreads across spa menus.

A new supplier launches to build the saunas and cryotherapy chambers hotels keep ordering

Spa Business19 Oct 2026

Vitaas has launched to design, supply, install and maintain wellness cabins, most of them hand-built at its Surrey workshop: traditional saunas, steam rooms, cooling facilities and cryotherapy chambers, with specialist builds such as snow rooms delivered alongside partners. CEO Jack Harding, previously at Guncast and Klafs UK, is joined by managing director Barry Smith from Drom UK and commercial director Gilles Darmon from Klafs UK, about 75 years in the sector between the three of them. A showroom in Send, Surrey opens with eight bespoke cabins, including a relaxation room pairing halotherapy with heated loungers, at a launch event on 19 November. The UK comes first, with acquisitions eyed as the route into Europe.

Plant Medicine & Psychedelic Research

An Iowa church wins state clearance to import and brew ayahuasca

Marijuana Moment17 Oct 2026

The Iowaska Church of Healing has cleared the second of two hurdles to hold ceremonies legally, after the Iowa Board of Pharmacy agreed on 5 October to issue it a state certificate. The first step was a confidential memorandum of agreement signed with the DEA in June on the church's request for a religious exemption from the Controlled Substances Act, filed under seal so its terms are not public. The board's order says that federal agreement effectively grants the church authority to import concentrated ayahuasca paste and manufacture the tea in bulk. The certification sits on probation for a year, and the church must report any adverse event requiring off-site medical help, which is a notable precedent for how religious-use access gets supervised.

An Oregon study tests a group psilocybin model for low-income patients

PsyPost16 Oct 2026

A single Oregon psilocybin session can run about US$2,000, which has kept the state's legal program largely out of reach for the people who most need it. A feasibility study published in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies ran 19 adults earning at or below 200% of the federal poverty line through cohorts of up to six, with online preparation, two in-person dosing sessions a week apart and online integration two days after each. Average depression scores fell from 22.2 to 8.8 two days after the second session and sat at 11.9 at three months, with 98% attendance and satisfaction averaging 4.8 out of 5. Lead author Matthew Hicks is careful about what it proves: there was no control group and no blinding, so the point was feasibility, not efficacy.

A single psilocybin dose beat placebo for weeks, then the gap closed by a year

PsyPost18 Oct 2026

Hampus Yngwe and colleagues at Karolinska Institutet followed 35 Swedish adults with moderate to severe recurrent depression for twelve months, randomizing a single 25mg dose of psilocybin against an active placebo of 100mg niacin, with both groups receiving five psychotherapeutic support sessions over 17 days. Published in JAMA Network Open, the trial found the psilocybin group about seven points better on the clinician-rated scale by day eight and still ahead at days 15 and 42, with remission at 53% against 6%. By day 365 the difference was no longer statistically significant, and remission stood at 53% against 41%, a gap the authors say could be chance. Two participants had severe anxiety lasting weeks that needed medical attention, and blinding largely failed, with 94% of those given psilocybin guessing correctly. A valuable corrective to durability claims, from researchers willing to publish it.

Industry & Destinations

Packages drive 93% of spa bookings, and the 25 to 44 crowd is up 255%

Spa Business19 Oct 2026

Trybe's State of Spa Revenue report analyzed about US$240 million of operational revenue from more than 400 spa, leisure and activity businesses across the UK, Europe and the US, drawn from actual bookings rather than a survey. Packages accounted for 93% of online bookings, roughly three quarters came from phones or tablets, just over half were made outside office hours, and guests spent an average of US$353 on upsells. Bookings from 25 to 44 year olds rose 255% between 2024 and 2025, and that group spends the most. Co-founder Ricky Daniels had one blunt prescription: stop pricing every hour the same, because Saturday earns more per transaction than Monday and most operators charge identically for both. Worth noting the sample is about 60% UK businesses, so treat the regional revenue gaps as a picture of Trybe's own dataset rather than the whole market.

Brazil's biggest gym group buys into its biggest spa network

Spa Business16 Oct 2026

Smart Fit has agreed to invest up to R$32 million (about US$6.3 million) for as much as 20% of Buddha Wellness Group Brasil, the company behind Buddha Spa, through a mix of share purchase and subscription. A shareholders' agreement on completion would hand Smart Fit a call option over a further 10 percentage points, taking it to 30%. Buddha Spa, founded in 2001 and now Brazil's largest spa network, runs 149 locations across 12 states with about 96% of them franchised and two to three new franchises opening a month. For the fitness group it is a way into the spa market without building a network from scratch, and another sign of gyms and spas converging into one wellness business.

SweatHouz plans 12 contrast therapy studios across New York City

Spa Business15 Oct 2026

The US contrast therapy operator is entering New York with at least 12 studios planned across Manhattan and Brooklyn, starting with an 8,000sq ft Tribeca flagship on Warren Street. Each of its eight private suites pairs an infrared sauna, a cold plunge and a vitamin C shower, so a 60-minute session runs without shared facilities, and a dedicated event room is set aside for sound baths, breathwork, meditation and small-group yoga. A group suite for four to six people, PentHouz, debuts there before a wider rollout. Founded in 2019, SweatHouz now has more than 100 studios, has awarded over 500 franchise licenses and says it delivered 1.9 million private recovery sessions last year.

Beer spa signs its first franchise, in the Las Vegas Arts District

Spa Business14 Oct 2026

Colorado's Oakwell Beer Spa has signed its first franchise agreement and its first expansion outside the state, with husband-and-wife franchisees Andrew and Gina Lanzino scouting sites around the Las Vegas Arts District. The format pairs private suites holding hydrotherapy soaking tubs, infrared saunas, rain showers and hops and barley bath infusions with a craft beer and wine taproom, and runs on hospitality staff rather than licensed therapists, which is what makes it franchisable. Founders Jessica and Damien Zouaoui built the concept after 14 months and 25 countries of research, and have identified Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta, Detroit, Boston, Kansas City and Charleston as next markets. Proof that the low-intervention, high-sociability end of wellness scales fastest.

The Philippines courts investment in medical and wellness tourism

Daily Tribune13 Oct 2026

Tourism Secretary Dita Angara-Mathay used the 15th Arangkada Philippines Forum to press business leaders to build out medical and wellness tourism, arguing for a model that links hospitals, diagnostics, rehabilitation, hospitality and long-stay communities rather than treating them as separate sectors. The country's wellness economy was worth US$47.3 billion in 2024, ranking 23rd globally and 8th in Asia-Pacific, and the tourism department's accredited network now covers 13 hospitals, 21 ambulatory clinics, 10 dental clinics and 63 spas. Traditional hilot, preventive care, longevity services and locally sourced wellness products were singled out for promotion, and a Medical Concierge and Lounge has opened at Manila's Terminal 3 to connect arriving patients with accredited experiences.

New Stays

andBeyond rebuilds its Okavango Delta lodge around a hammam and a hydrotherapy deck

Sleeper19 Oct 2026

andBeyond Xaranna Okavango Delta Lodge is being rebuilt inside a 90,500-hectare concession in Botswana, reopening in August 2027. Nine 160sq m suites each get a living area, personal bar, two-way fireplace, private pool and shaded sala, joined by a new 404sq m two-bedroom family suite that can connect or operate separately. The wellness center is the real news for a safari property: a hammam, rain and Vichy showers, an outdoor hot tub and a hydrotherapy deck, plus a fitness area with a cold plunge and a relaxation deck over the wetlands. Interiors come from LIFE Interiors Architecture Strategic Design, in sage and forest greens with linen, timber and brass.

A new ultra-luxury brand lands on Mykonos with a 900sq m wellness center

Sleeper14 Oct 2026

Ora Hospitality is launching a yet-to-be-named ultra-luxury brand with a flagship resort on a hillside above Kalo Livadi Bay, a reported EUR100 million investment opening in May 2027. The village-style layout holds 93 keys in total: 60 rooms, 28 suites and five villas, all with sea views and private outdoor space. Rockwell Group is designing it, with founder Naguib Sawiris personally steering the concept, and the wellness center runs to 900sq m alongside four restaurants and bars and event space for 200. Partnerships with global wellness and food names are promised but not yet named.

Seven new Lapland stays open for winter, most with a sauna in the room

RUS Tourism News13 Oct 2026

Finnish Lapland adds seven properties for the 2026 to 2027 season, and private sauna is now close to standard rather than a flourish. Halo Riverside Resort near Rovaniemi opens 39 glass igloos, each with an indoor sauna and outdoor hot tub, while Aava Glass Igloos adds 13 suites with private Finnish saunas from EUR599 a night on grand-opening dates. Arcora Boutique Hotel & Villas opens 14 December beside Pallas-Yllastunturi National Park with saunas, hot and cold bathing and a rooftop infinity pool, and North Resort on Lake Miekojarvi brings ice-water bathing and in-suite saunas. Santa's Hotel Noelle, Kelo Sky Villas and the six-guest Octola III complete the list. Worth confirming North Resort's opening date directly, as sources differ.

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