It’s been a busy week in the spa and wellness world, with major openings, plans revealed, new initiatives launched, and new positions announced.

At Spa Opportunities, we want to make sure you don’t miss any of the most exciting industry news, so we’re bringing you a roundup of the week’s top news.

The World Tourism Organization and the European Travel Commission hosted a roundtable of international experts to better understand and explore the growing segment of wellness and medical tourism, and representatives from the Global Wellness Institute attended, calling it “a powerful gathering of the minds” that made “fantastic progress.”

In other wellness news, the Welsh government is funding a masterplan for a wellness village in South Wales that would incorporate wellness tourism, health services, science, wellbeing research, housing, sport and leisure, and education. It’s an ambitious project that got underway after a GWI-sponsored roundtable was held at Swansea University last year, and we at Spa Opportunities will be sure to watch how it develops.

Mandarin oriental revealed plans to launch a digital detox Initiative in September, which includes programming that helps guests tune out from technology, and also offers tips on having a more technologically-balanced life, created in partnership with nonprofit medical centre Mayo Clinic.

In Switzerland, the recently refurbished Art Nouveau landmark hotel Royal Savoy Lausanne has opened a new 1,500sq m spa with eight treatment rooms and an extensive wet zone. The spa includes treatments from La Clinic Lemanic as well as La Valle, Biologique Recherche and Aromatherapy Associates.

And in people news, industry veteran diane trieste – who’s a past board member of ISPA, was responsible for start-up design and operations for Canyon Ranch for 13 years, and has also worked with Olympic athletes – has joined industry supplier saltability as VP of business development.

Look out for fresh news all next week on spaopportunities.com, where we’ll bring you a sneak-peek of the stunning TLee-designed spa at Auberge in Fort Lauderdale, take a look at a new medi-spa that’s just branched out into franchising, and explore how a new Hyatt Regency spa in China is using ancient Chinese history in its design.

All this, plus a new issue of Spa Opportunities in print next Friday, August 5 – sign up here to receive your digital copy, or to receive instant alerts any time we publish a new industry story online.