MEDI WELLNESS
on Good
TERMES An Italian medical group, resurrecting the country’s terme culture with a preventative health concept, has attracted greater attention post-lockdown. Sophie Benge pays a visit
T The 28-room Lucia Magnani Health Clinic fully reopened again on 28 May
78 spabusiness.com issue 3 2020
here are roughly 300 thermal and mineral spas across Italy offering such therapeutic treatments that they’re prescribed by the national health service. Yet, in spite of this, thermal cures continue to wane in a pharmaceutical-dominant culture. One medical organisation, however, has seen this as an opportunity to develop a new business model. GVM International, which owns over 50 private hospitals, first got into holistic wellness in 1998 when buying a dilapidated Fascist-era thermal water facility and hotel in Terme di Castrocaro, just a few miles from Mussolini’s birthplace in Emilia-Romagna. It was only at the end of 2018, however, that it committed to a €30m (US$33.5m, £26.2m) refurbishment project of the former state-owned facilities with a view to also overhauling a connecting clinic to create a top-league integrated health, wellness