Year of health and wellness kicking off at ILTM Asia Pacific

ILTM Asia Pacific will return for its second edition with a fresh focus on wellness, with the organisers dedicating an area on the show floor to a relaxation space called The Retreat.

At ILTM Cannes last December, Reed Exhibitions announced 2019 as the year of health and wellness, and debuted The Retreat, an area showcasing wellness products, in partnership with Six Senses.

The organisers will bring this new element to ILTM Asia Pacific in May, continuing its collaboration with Six Senses. About 100m2 of space on the show floor will be allocated to wellness offerings including an alchemy bar, where delegates can make scrubs, a juice bar for energy shots, head and shoulder massages, and innovative products such as “sound chairs”, according to Alison Gilmore, portfolio director, ILTM.

“In Cannes, we worked with Six Senses to build The Retreat (which featured a range of invigorating elements such as) sound chairs. The user lies down on these (wave-form) seats. Music plays through the headphones and the chair, sending vibrations up to the user’s body,” Gilmore shared.

With product demonstrations especially key when it comes to such innovative treatments and therapies, physical marketplaces like ILTM are in a position to offer an enhanced proposition to suppliers looking to showcase wellness differentiators.

“Such products (especially benefit from) being showcased in a physical space (as opposed to catalogues and brochures). You really need to touch and feel them to get a sense of what they can do,” Gilmore said.

At the upcoming ILTM Asia Pacific, the wellness theme will extend beyond the show floor. Gilmore told TTG Asia that delegates attending the show this year can look forward to fun fringe activities such as group runs, a first for ILTM, and yoga sessions.

“Last year was our first year (doing an Asia-Pacific show), and we wanted to make sure we covered the basics. Now more things are in place, and we need add in other relevant components. We haven’t organised the run in Cannes, but do we see a lot of delegates out running in the morning. We want to start the running club off in Singapore.”

source: TTG Asia