Transcendent Travel a Trillion Dollar Industry
According to the Global Wellness Institute, in 2022, the 819.4 Billion wellness trips taken (both internationally and domestically) represented 7.8% of all tourism trips – a much larger share than just a decade earlier. Unbelievably, wellness trips are projected to rise to 8.3% of all tourism trips by 2027, with wellness tourism crossing the 1 Trillion Mark in 2024.
Beth McGroarty, VP of Research for the Global Wellness Institute, says that GWI experts predict that wellness tourism will reach $1.63 Trillion by 2027. “People have become so much more intentional with wellness, specific about what they want to achieve in a retreat/program…they want to go deeper and experiment with wellness in ways they have never before.”
When seeking to alleviate distress, in the past most people have visited a luxury spa for a few days: Maybe some spa treatments, a walk around the labyrinth, and some good sleep. That was thought to be the “Answer” to hidden psychological burdens and burnout. This largely band-aid approach is slowly being replaced by travelling to psychedelic retreats as the gateway to good mental health, wholeness, and authenticity.” Ms. McGroarty added, “It’s safe to say there are hundreds and hundreds of psilocybin and psychedelic retreats opening each year, and operators report growth.” She cites psilocybin studies showing psilocybin’s lasting impact on major depression to its eye-opening potential impact on addiction/alcohol abuse to its potential for anxiety disorder to its well-researched, positive mental health impact on people with terminal or life-threatening diseases.
“Many people in the world are walking trauma units and have never been diagnosed,” says Justin Townsend, CEO of MycoMeditations in Jamaica, considered by many to be the gold standard of mental health and wellness retreats offering psilocybin-assisted therapy. (Mr. Townsend’s experience in this field is quite extensive: He used to be the Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Mt. Sinai Hospital, within The Institute for Next Generation Healthcare.) “There is an acute mental-health crisis and it’s getting more acute with every generation. Separate from that, many people are on a hedonistic hamster wheel, go through the grind and have lost a sense of meaning and purpose…We are living in a time of hyper-novelty with things changing at a rate that people cannot keep up with, which contributes to the mental-health crisis and the lack of meaning and purpose.”
In fact, in 2018 the Global Wellness Institute called MycoMeditations a “pioneer” in the rapidly-growing psychedelic renaissance. Indeed, Myco Meditations has become quite well-known in the new world of “magic mushrooms,” better known as the plant medicine psilocybin. (If you in fact saw the Netflix series Nine Perfect Strangers, you have some idea of what MycoMeditations is like.)
“We are a mental health retreat,” says Mr. Townsend, and the retreat that he co-owns with partner Mike Ljubsa definitely does not have caricaturist tiny Buddhas, or New Age artwork proclaiming “Namaste,” or the ringing of chimes after an experience.
“Most people have maladaptive thinking patterns about themselves that were formed in childhood — such as feeling less-than or unlovable — and it creates maladaptive behaviour in the world, which translates to things like withdrawal, or anesthetising yourself through alcohol and streaming hours of digital content. Psilocybin lets you see new ways of looking at old problems. Once you discharge the toxic emotions that have been housed inside you (anger, fear, shame, guilt) and make you so reactive, you have the freedom to act differently in the world and to not be so triggered. Your unhealthy cognitive distortions weaken and collapse, and because of that, you can choose a different response if you get activated.”
Right now in the United States, millions of people are eagerly awaiting expected FDA approval, in August, of MDMA medicine to treat PTSD. However, even after the federal government fully approves MDMA for this purpose, the therapy will not become widely available for perhaps an additional 6-12 months. There is, however, innovative access to psychedelic assisted therapy where individuals are receiving safe, first-class, medically-supervised MDMA treatment that adheres to all MAPS protocols: Canada.
ATMACENA CANADA
Leading the way for access within Canada is ATMACENA, a leader in the field of psychedelic-assisted therapy, offering services in both Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta (the only Canadian province with licensed psychedelic treatment) with two new clinics opening in London and Vaughn, Ontario in summer of 2024. Canada offers a Special Access Program (SAP), whereby patients can gain access to MDMA and psilocybin therapy - in a safe, licensed, medically supervised environment. Says ATMACENA CEO Reverdi Darda, “We know the regulation and licensing for psychedelic-assisted therapy is going to take time. Without access to the Special Access Program, individuals would not have access to safe, medically supervised, and legal treatment.” The process is explained by Chief Operating Officer Jacque Lovely: After completing your application, which typically gets approved within six to ten weeks, you can start preparation with a therapist, and receive your first dose of MDMA within three to four weeks. Within the MAPS protocol there are about four weeks in between the suggested doses. “In the most recent MAPS clinical trial, 86% of participants treated with MDMA achieved a clinically meaningful benefit and 71% of participants no longer met criteria for PTSD by study’s end,” adds Mr. Lovely.
For right now, you may simply be considering psilocybin, and here’s what Mr. Townsend has to say, when all is said and done. “Psilocybin has the potential to offer you more creativity, and more ease with uncertainty and ambiguity – and we all could use a dose of that, that’s for sure.”
An extract from Transcendent Travel Set To Cross The 1 Trillion Mark In 2024. First published in FORBES, May 2024 by
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