Valentine’s Spa Searches Surge 864%

Valentine’s planning is looking less like a dash to the card aisle and more like a short haul wellness itinerary. New analysis from Fresha suggests a sharp spike in demand for couples’ spa experiences, with “Valentine’s spa” searches reaching 64,000 in the past month, up 864% month on month, based on Google Search data.

The data also points to behaviour that feels established rather than impulsive. Looking across five years of search patterns, Fresha reports the same annual surge landing in January and early February, signalling that spa breaks have become a repeatable Valentine’s ritual for a growing cohort, rather than a late-minute save.

The destinations attracting the most attention lean heavily into atmosphere, bathing culture and “time together” cues. In Barcelona, AIRE Ancient Baths Barcelona leads the search interest, with candlelit pools and ritualised bathing positioned as a modern date format, helped along by return flights “from as little as £25”, according to the same analysis.

Elsewhere, the pull is heritage and scale. Budapest ranks highly alongside Corinthia Budapest, reflecting the enduring appeal of thermal bathing traditions and grand spa hotels. For travellers looking for cinematic seclusion, Reykjavík appears in the list via The Retreat at Blue Lagoon, while “quiet luxury” signals are strong around Lake Lucerne and Bürgenstock Alpine Spa.

The takeaway for operators is that the Valentine’s consumer is increasingly shopping for a shared environment, not a single service, with the “why” anchored in privacy, mood and unhurried time.

“Search behaviour shows that Valentine’s Day is no longer centred around gifts or single-day plans,” says Annabelle Taurua, adding that couples are seeking spa experiences with “privacy, atmosphere and time together”, with European destinations rooted in thermal bathing and destination wellness seeing the strongest growth.

This sits within a wider expansion of the wellness economy and wellness tourism. Global Wellness Institute puts the global wellness economy at $6.3 trillion in 2023, and frames it as a category that has moved firmly into the mainstream of consumer spend. It also reports wellness tourism expenditures reaching $894 billion in 2024, underlining how quickly travel has reattached itself to wellbeing narratives post-pandemic.

In other words, Valentine’s is benefiting from a structural shift already in motion: consumers increasingly understand “wellness” as something you can book, gift, and travel for, rather than only something you buy in a bottle or practise at home.

YouGov research on Valentine’s Day 2024 found that 61% of Britons planned to spend about the same as the previous year, while 16% planned to spend less and 13% planned to spend more. In follow-up reporting after the day, YouGov also notes cost sensitivity in the reasons people cite for cutting back, including mutual decisions to save and reduced capacity compared to the year before.

What makes the Fresha search spike notable is that it suggests couples are not abandoning Valentine’s spend, they are reallocating it. A spa break can read as better value than a bundle of short-lived gifts, particularly when low-cost flights compress the mental barrier to “going somewhere” for one or two nights.

Couples’ demand tends to cluster around a small set of cues: dual treatment rooms, private thermal access, time-boxed but unhurried rituals, and sensory theatre that feels distinct from everyday self-care. The destinations highlighted by Fresha lean into exactly that, from candlelit bathing to heritage thermal culture.