Unpacking Chelsea Winter's $10k a head wellness retreat

Don’t be swayed by that six-person spa with the fancy wooden siding. Or a family holiday to Disneyland. Turn down that 1996 Nissan Terrano with 197,000 km of mileage on Trade Me.

Instead, that $10,000 could be spend on Nourish and Bloom, a four-day women’s retreat plucked from the curated world of celebrity chef and author Chelsea Winter.

“A passage to becoming the woman you were always meant to be.”

...”remembering your feminine essence, and feeling your nervous system recalibrate...”

“...while this retreat won’t be for everyone, those meant to be there will feel it in their bones...”

That’s the pitch from Winter, who posted the invitation on Monday to her 100,000-plus Instagram followers as she angled for expressions of interest for the 20 available spots (two, she said, had already sold by the time she posted). The $10,000 private room package isn’t a fee per se, but rather a “sacred contribution” for the all-inclusive retreat set to take place in June next year, according to the event’s website.

Nourish and Bloom is Winter’s expansion from cookbook author into the growing $11 trillion global wellness industry. It’s where followers look for meaning and guidance in sound and energy healing, alchemy (a mystic form of something close to chemistry), breath work, and a host of other alternative and fringe practices that often have little to no scientific evidence that they work. Wellness culture is a subject that RNZ’s podcast “The Lodge” examined earlier this year through the cult of Chinese-born guru Aiping Wang, who established a base in New Zealand’s South Island.

And Winter’s isn’t the first influencer or content creator to branch out into an in-person event. Influencers are increasingly exploring the benefits of in-person events to further build their communities and create other revenue streams, according to Business Insider.

“If Winter could do a couple of these a year, that is a tidy income,” says Bodo Lang, a marketing professor at Massey University.

He likened the retreat and similar events to the status symbol of driving a luxury car.

“[Attending] would be a great dinner party conversation starter with high-flying friends.”

As for the aspirational language and wellness jargon populating Winter’s Instagram post and the Nourish and Bloom website, it's clearly aimed at New Zealanders at the top of the income and education scale, and wouldn’t make much sense to those on lower incomes, Lang says.

Content creators typically have a few goals in mind when they invite followers to in-person events, says Lang. It is, of course, about making money, but it is also for creating more content at the event and turning attendees into “word of mouth agents” or “brand apostles,” he says.

“They will preach about how amazing it is.”

From the perspective of content creators who run events, “it is converting your largely passive, possibly loss-making audience online into a community, customers and ultimately super fans,” he adds.

Many followers would have spent years in a “parasocial” relationship - a one-sided, non-reciprocal connection - with Winter through her social media presence, cook books, and other media. That makes an in-person retreat “a real gap closer, an aspirational gap closer to get close to people you are really into online,” says Lang.

He believes some New Zealand consumers are nursing Covid hangovers following the isolation of lockdowns, feeding a hunger for in-person connections.

“A lot of people are still working from home, so I think people crave contact with other people, particularly if they are slightly out of reach... ‘Suddenly I am one of 20 at this particular [retreat]'."

Anesha Dhanji, who follows Winter on Instagram, was interested in the retreat but ultimately didn’t sign up. The $10,000 fee was too great, and Winter hinted there would be more affordable opportunities in the future.

“What attracted me to it is firstly that I’m interested in personal growth and self-reflection, especially after a very difficult two years,” Dhanji wrote to RNZ on Instagram.

She has never been to the retreat location in the Southern Alps and was keen to meet new friends and make connections.

Sophie Stephens is a travel and food influencer based in Christchurch who runs social events through her initiative Girls Eat and Meet. The events, like the one this Thursday, are mostly sold out, demonstrating a need for women to have real-life connections, she says, pointing to the success of running clubs started by influencers.

“I’ve actually made three of my really close friends through Girls Eat and Meet events,” says Stephens, who started the initiative not long after she moved to the city.

The events don’t make much money but are a way for Stephens, who is also a marketing consultant, to find an altruistic meaning in her existing social media platform.

“I would hate to think the girls coming were overpaying,” she says.

Winter did not respond to RNZ's request for comment.