The market for meditation and mindfulness has become one of the fastest-growing segments of the wellness industry. The Global Wellness Institute (GWI), a U.S. nonprofit research organization, said in its “2025 Global Wellness Economy Monitor,” released Nov. 19, 2025, that the global wellness economy totaled $6.8 trillion in 2024.
Wellness economy expected to approach $10 trillion within five years
The institute projects that the market will reach $9.8 trillion by 2029. Its compound annual growth rate was 6.2% from 2019 to 2024 and is expected to accelerate to 7.6% from 2024 to 2029. Compared with 2013, the economy will have doubled in size.
Catherine Johnston, a senior research fellow at GWI, said the wellness economy had fully recovered to prepandemic levels, making clear how strong the trend has become as a consumer movement.
Mental wellness ranks among fastest-growing sectors
Among the 11 sectors identified in the report, the fastest-growing from 2019 to 2024 were wellness real estate, at 19.5% annually; spas, 14.6%; wellness tourism, 13.8%; mental wellness, 12.4%; and thermal and mineral springs, 11.1%. The fact that mental wellness, which includes meditation and mindfulness, ranks among the leaders stands out.
The momentum is expected to continue. Mental wellness is projected to grow at an annual rate of 10.1% through 2029, behind wellness real estate at 15.8% and traditional and complementary medicine at 10.8%.
The United States has the world's largest mental wellness market, followed by China. Meditation apps and sleep-related services are considered the sector's main pillars.
Workplace wellness was the only sector to contract
Not every sector grew. Workplace wellness fell 1.5% from 2023 to 2024, making it the only one of the 11 sectors to decline. The result appears to reflect the early scaling back of workplace wellness programs as companies tighten their employee-benefit budgets.
The figures show a broader shift: areas where individuals spend their own money are expanding, while areas previously paid for by employers are shrinking.
Asia's per-capita spending is one-thirteenth of North America's
Regional disparities remain wide. Annual per-capita wellness spending was highest in North America at $6,029, followed by Europe at $1,876, Latin America and the Caribbean at $607, Asia at $471, and the Middle East and North Africa at $339. Asia's level was one-thirteenth of North America's.
Over the same period, regional growth rates were 7.9% in North America, 7.2% in the Middle East and North Africa, and 6.3% in Europe.
What South Korea should take from the figures
The figures point in a clear direction. North America and Europe control the largest markets, but Asia still has the most room to grow. Opportunities lie where domestic meditation and mindfulness services meet wellness tourism resources linking temple stays with healing forests.
The press release did not provide figures specifically for South Korea. Assessing the size of the domestic market will require a separate review of the country-level data in the full report. But South Korea's market is awakening to wellness rapidly, and the trend is certain to spread there faster than in any other country. Wellness has already begun spreading among people in their 20s and 30s as a form of leisure culture. Wellness is expected to become a pillar of the lifestyle within two to three years, but many hurdles remain before it can move beyond leisure culture and become a true foundation supporting the mental health of people in South Korea.
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