‘Health is the new luxury’ as wellness spending soars

Equinox’s $40,000-a-year membership has a waiting list of more than 1,000 people, as demand for luxury health and wellness programs soars, according to the company’s chairman.

The high-end fitness chain’s “Optimize by Equinox,” launched in 2024, is one of the most expensive gym memberships in the world and includes everything from personal training and nutrition to sleep coaching, massage therapy and a “health concierge.”

Harvey Spevak, Equinox’s executive chairman, told Inside Wealth that the program has seen remarkable demand and highlights the “insatiable” demand by the wealthy for longevity and wellness products.

“Health is the new luxury,” Spevak said. “The No. 1 thing in the experience economy, besides travel, that the consumer wants, is, ‘How do I live a high-performance lifestyle?'”

The Optimize program is all part of Equinox’s strategy to become the leading luxury brand in the fast-growing business of health and wellness.

The global wellness market is expected to reach nearly $10 trillion by 2030, up from $6.8 trillion in 2024, according to estimates from the Global Wellness Institute. With the population of millionaires and billionaires aging, and an explosion in companies and products promising miracle cures, the wealthy are driving much of the spending.

Equinox has grown beyond fitness clubs to expand into hotels and hospitality, personalized performance programs, IV centers, blood-testing collaborations and more.

The company opened its first hotel, in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards neighborhood, in 2019 and is about to open a second, in Saudi Arabia. Spevak said Equinox will likely have close to a dozen hotels around the world — including in the Middle East, the Caribbean and the U.S. — within the next seven to eight years.

Equinox currently has 115 fitness clubs and has plans for 40 more — including locations in Nashville, Tennessee; Toronto; Charlotte, North Carolina; and South Florida. Despite being the largest retailer in New York by square feet, it’s continuing to add more in its home city, Spevak said.

The Optimize membership leverages Function Health, a lab test company, to provide clients with tests for 100 biomarkers twice a year, which could then serve as guides for a fitness, nutrition and lifestyle program tailored to each client.

Spevak said the program has rolled out in Los Angeles and Dallas and will eventually launch in New York.

The company also recently created a personalized program for women called EQX ARC. Using  diagnostics, wearables and specialized coaching, the program is designed around the different stages of a woman’s life and health journey, and already has its own waitlist.

Spevak said the company’s IV-drip lounge at the Equinox Hotel in Hudson Yards — its only drip lounge thus far — has already become “a seven-figure business.”