Italy has been named the world’s best spa destination at the 12th annual World Spa Awards, confirming the country’s standing at the heart of global wellness travel. The title placed Italy ahead of nominees from Australia, Hawaii, the Maldives and Japan. Individual Italian properties carried the theme further, collecting several of the most closely watched global titles.
The awards are decided by a combination of public and industry votes, with spas first competing across nine regional categories covering Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, the Indian Ocean, Latin America, the Middle East, North America and Oceania. The regional winner with the most votes in each category then claims the global title. This year’s results point firmly towards Europe, and towards Italy in particular, as the centre of gravity in luxury wellbeing.
Italian retreats collect the leading global titles
Palazzo Fiuggi takes the wellness retreat award
Palazzo Fiuggi, in the historic spa town of the same name, was named the world’s best wellness retreat. The property has built its programme around Fiuggi’s mineral-rich waters and the sweeping hilltop views that surround the town. Its approach, known as the Fiuggi method, rests on four pillars: purify, nourish, energise and connect.
Each stay opens with a diagnostic evaluation involving the retreat’s scientists, doctors and specialists, who shape a personal programme for every guest. Natural spring therapies sit alongside conventional medical care, a combination that has made the retreat a reference point for medically informed wellbeing escapes. The property collected three titles at this year’s World Spa Awards.
Resort and grotto titles stay in Italy
The world’s best resort spa award went to Lefay SPA World at Lefay Resort & SPA Dolomiti, a facility covering more than 5,000 square metres in the Dolomites. Operators describe it as a ‘temple of wellness’, pairing techniques drawn from Asian traditions with European practice. Treatments range from lymphatic drainage and detoxifying massage to cupping and mud therapies.
Grotta Giusti Thermal Spa Resort in Tuscany took the world’s best thermal grotto spa title for the 10th time. The retreat is organised around an ancient cave that stretches more than 200 metres beneath the estate and is regarded as Europe’s largest natural thermal grotto. The setting has made the property one of the defining images of Italian spa culture.
Conditions inside the cave range from 28 to 34 degrees, with steam released from the naturally heated mineral waters. Guests can take steam baths, join combined pilates and yoga classes, and even complete guided scuba dives in the thermal water itself. Few spa experiences anywhere offer a comparable setting.
European winners reach from the Alps to the Aegean
Italy was not the only European country to impress the voters. Switzerland was named the world’s best wellness destination in the country categories, while Austria’s Geinberg5 Villas took the award for the world’s best private spa. France collected the eco spa title for the Spa L’Occitane en Provence at Le Couvent des Minimes, and Portugal’s Vila Vita Spa by Sisley at Vila Vita Parc was recognised for its service standards.
Greece took the city resort spa title for the Guerlain Spa at One&Only Aesthesis, while Six Senses in London was named the world’s best new wellness retreat. SHA in Spain secured the award for the world’s best wellness clinic, and Austria added another honour when SPA 3000 at AQUA DOME was named the world’s best mineral and hot springs spa. The reach of the sector now extends to air travel, with the Air France by Sisley spa at Paris Charles de Gaulle taking the airline lounge spa award.
What the results signal for luxury travel
Beyond the individual winners, this year’s World Spa Awards results show how far wellness has moved to the centre of luxury travel planning. The leading properties share an emphasis on measurable outcomes, from Palazzo Fiuggi’s opening diagnostics to programmes built around longevity and preventive care. Guests are no longer choosing between a holiday and a health reset, because the strongest retreats now combine the two.
The balance of titles carries commercial weight as well. Italy’s collection of honours across the destination, retreat, resort and grotto categories will reinforce its appeal to the growing number of holidaymakers who plan entire journeys around wellbeing. For hoteliers and tour operators across the Alpine and Mediterranean regions, the message is that serious facilities, guided by medical expertise, matter more than decoration.
Some of the headline awards did travel further afield. The world’s best hotel spa title went to the Guerlain Wellness Spa at the Waldorf Astoria New York, and the signature treatment award was presented to a practitioner working at Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Bali. Yet the centre of the wellness map this year sits firmly in Europe, and in Italy above all.