Why Regenerative Travel is covering the Global Wellness Summit
Before the first keynote at the Global Wellness Summit, delegates will gather on the sand at Angsana Laguna Phuket and move together to music, breath and rhythm as the Andaman light rises. It is a quiet image of the shift we have long championed, where wellbeing is felt in relationship with other people and with the living place that holds us.
From November 10 to 13, Regenerative Travel will be in Phuket as accredited media for the 20th Global Wellness Summit. The Summit gathers leaders of a global wellness economy now valued at $6.8 trillion, and its theme this year, "The Science, Art and Soul of Wellness," reads almost as a definition of regenerative wellness itself.
Regenerative wellness asks that a journey restore the traveller, the host community and the ecosystem together. Our forthcoming report, The Science of Regeneration, follows that idea through longevity medicine, preventive health and travel, and Phuket will bring many of the people shaping it into a single week.
A royal opening that roots wellness in culture and community
On the morning of November 11, Her Majesty Queen Suthida Bajrasudhabimalalakshana of Thailand will officially open the Summit. Her presence speaks to a theme close to regenerative wellness, the idea that health grows from shared practice, cultural heritage and a sense of national belonging.
The Queen is a high-performance athlete who helped lead Thailand's sailing team, as strategist and navigator, to a historic gold medal at the 2025 Southeast Asian Games. She is also a national advocate for sport, fitness and the preservation of Thailand's rich cultural heritage, and for many young Thai women she has become a symbol of strength and discipline.
Co-chair Jiří Dvořák, MD, PhD, who supervises her training at the BDMS Wellness Clinic, notes that when she trains, her entire team trains as well. That image of wellbeing practised together as a community is one regenerative hosts will recognise from the most meaningful journeys they create.
Longevity science grows more integrative, collective and accessible
For regenerative wellness, the most hopeful thread in the longevity program is its turn toward evidence and inclusion. Speakers will forecast a future that is integrative, collective and open to many, a direction that mirrors how regenerative travel hopes wellbeing can be shared.
Andrea Maier, MD, PhD, directs the NUS Academy for Healthy Longevity, and her team is one of 20 finalists for the $101 million XPRIZE Healthspan Competition. Kenneth R. Pelletier, MD, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, will sort fact from fantasy in human longevity, while Anna Bjurstam of Wahayla looks beyond the hype to the business of wellness.
George Gaitanos of Chenot reframes longevity as a dynamic state of everyday health, an idea regenerative retreats already live through food, movement, rest and time in nature. These conversations feed directly into The Science of Regeneration, where we ask how healthspan science can strengthen the places and communities that host it.
Designing places that restore people and belong to their surroundings
Regenerative wellness begins with place, and the Summit's art and design program treats buildings, destinations and cities as living influences on our nervous systems. Thomas Heatherwick will open this thread with "The Architecture of Indifference," a reckoning with what boring buildings quietly do to our wellbeing.
Bernhard Bohnenberger of Discover Collection asks whether we can design a place where people feel they belong, the same question regenerative hoteliers ask when they build with local materials, craft and stories. A panel with COCUN, Proud Real Estate and Arigami will imagine wellness cities grown from cultural capital.
Of particular resonance for our community is a global movement placing Indigenous cultures and crafts at the heart of wellbeing. Among more than 70 speakers, these voices suggest that the most restorative spaces are those that honour the people and ecologies that shaped them.
Ancient wisdom and nature as the ground of regenerative wellness
Thailand gives this part of the program its deepest roots, with Buddhist traditions, reverence for nature and a long understanding of how body, mind and spirit belong together. Nancy Davis, chief creative officer and executive director of the Summit, speaks of wellness as connection, compassion, beauty, purpose and belonging, the same qualities regenerative travel seeks to nurture between guests and hosts.
Students of the Dhammajarinee Witthaya School, which educates more than 1,000 underserved girls from across Thailand, will perform a traditional Buddhist chanting ceremony rooted in gratitude and inner peace. Brought to the Summit through BuDhaGirl and co-chair Jessica Jesse, it is a living example of culture carried forward by community and shared with visitors on its own terms.
Ajahn Jayasāro, a teacher of the Thai Forest Tradition and in July 2026 the first foreign-born monk to receive the Somdej title, will speak on "What Remains When We Stop Trying to Improve Ourselves." Dawn movement on the beach with Sanctum founder Luuk Melisse and the nature films of Louie Schwartzberg extend the invitation to slow down and feel our place within the living world.
Wellness hospitality with purpose, community and a sense of place
For hoteliers and travel advisors in our community, the hospitality program maps where regenerative wellness travel is heading. Ho Kwon Ping, founder and executive chairman of Banyan Group, will trace the evolution of wellness hospitality "From Paradise to Purpose," a journey many of our member properties know well.
Ronald Akili of Desa Potato Head in Bali and Huy Hoang of Shishi-Iwa House in Japan join Anna Bjurstam to ask whether a resort can hold a point of view. Krip Rojanastien of Chiva-Som considers how a wellness destination keeps its soul as it scales, and the Pattamasaevi family of Montara Hospitality Group shares a legacy of care behind Trisara and Tri Vananda.
Red Sea Global and choreographer Bilal Allaf turn to movement, memory and the wisdom of place, while Lisa Von Tang, Patience Lifestyle and Capella Hotel Group explore community as the new currency of hospitality brands. The Global Wellness Institute will also unveil its 2026 Global Wellness Economy Monitor, its most in-depth report yet, offering fresh data for anyone building the case for regenerative wellness.
Join the regenerative wellness conversation in Phuket, November 10 to 13
The Summit is built for connection, from 160 table topics at lunch with industry leaders to after-dinner conversations, open-air dinners and beachfront celebrations. If you are working at the meeting point of wellness, hospitality and regeneration, we would love to meet you there.
Why the science, art and soul of wellness point toward regeneration
Twenty years on, the Global Wellness Summit is drawing the laboratory, the studio and the temple into one conversation, and that meeting point is where regenerative wellness lives. When the evidence of science, the beauty of design and the wisdom of place grow from the same ground, travel can leave people, communities and ecosystems more whole than it found them. That is the thread we will follow through every session in Phuket.
Regenerative Travel attends the 2026 Global Wellness Summit as accredited media. Event details are drawn from Global Wellness Summit announcements dated October 13, 19 and 27, 2026.
