MILAN — Guests flocking to Venice later this month for the wedding of the year — between Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez — can count on a new spa to recharge their energies for what promises to be a three-day extravaganza. 

The Longevity Suite has opened its latest spa at the San Clemente Palace hotel, bringing its multidisciplinary approach to wellness to the Lagoon after having debuted the format at the Ferragamo family’s hotel Portrait Milano last year. The San Clemente Palace is operated by Mandarin Oriental.

“With Portrait we wanted to expand in a new market because already 18 months ago trends were indicating that the wellness tourist was looking for a new kind of offering, more high tech, science-backed and medical-endorsed compared to the traditional services spas have been providing,” said Luigi Caterino, who in 2019 cofounded The Longevity Suite with Massimo Gualerzi, Elisa Mondelli and Roberta Bianchi. Hailing from different backgrounds but sharing the same passion for a sport-oriented and healthy lifestyle as friends, they all noticed a gap in the market for a luxury one-stop go-to destination with a holistic approach to well-being.

Today the biohacking and antiaging clinic is particularly known for its advanced technologies, cutting-edge protocols and signature rejuvenation treatments that combine detox, meditation and cryotherapy. “The idea was to bring this combination of science, medicine and tech we offer in our city clinics in a context where sessions can last longer,” said Caterino, who serves as the firm’s chief executive officer.

Partnering with San Clemente Palace in Venice was a natural choice as the 196-room luxury resort’s lush gardens offer a serene retreat on a private island that’s just a 10-minute boat ride from the bustling St. Mark’s Square. “It’s already a detoxing context, far from the traffic,” Caterino said. Similarly to Portrait Milano, access to the spa won’t be reserved only for hotel guests but also membership holders and the public, by appointment.

The facility includes cabins, a 21.5-meter heated outdoor pool as well as an indoor pool, Turkish bath and Finnish sauna, and a relaxation area with healthy snacks, herbal teas and smoothies under the firm’s The Longevity Kitchen label. Body and facial treatments flank the clinic’s distinctive protocols and biohacking techniques aimed at controlling inflammation and reducing aging.

The company has also brought to Venice one of its signature concepts, hinged on Blue Zones, locations with the highest life expectancy compared to the global average. Multisensory journeys have been developed to immerse clients in the rituals, music and smells inspired by the lifestyles of these destinations.

Each priced at 320 euros, the 110-minute sessions include rituals inspired by Nicoya, in Costa Rica, and featuring volcanic mud and reflexology food stimulation; Ikaria in Greece, incorporating wine-based treatments and red vine extract bandaging; Sardinia, recovering ancient thalassotherapy practices and using Mediterranean scents and seawater, and Okinawa in Japan, deploying algae leaves, fermented rice water and silk powder.

The spa additionally offers tailor made programs and specific diagnostic check-ups to assess one’s health, such as DNA tests focused on sports performance, nutrition, and skin health; gut microbiota analysis; hormonal assessment; skin health evaluation and metabolic check-ups.

The spa’s debut in Venice is part of a bigger, bullish plan The Longevity Suite is orchestrating across its different areas. The company has a constellation of integrated formats, stretching from spas and city clinics to The Longevity Kitchen healthy dining and food delivery concept.

New openings are expected to boost the company’s total sales, which reached 16 million euros last year and Caterino projected the top line would grow 40 percent to exceed 21 million euros in 2025. The goal is to reach the 100 million-euro milestone by 2030.

On the hospitality front, the company is set to open spas also at The Luxury Collection Bodrum in Turkey this month — replete with a The Longevity Kitchen restaurant — to be followed by the new The Lake Como Edition in July and the Portrait’s outpost in Florence next year. Caterino said the overall plan is to open at least 20 to 25 spas at international locations in the next five years.

A big rollout of city clinics is also in motion, set at an average pace of eight new openings every year for the next five years. The Longevity Suite currently has 33 city clinics across Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Turkey, with the most recent unit unveiled in Istanbul in February.

The upcoming opening will mark a milestone for the company, as it will group all of its branches under one roof for the first time. The firm will unveil its first flagship in Dubai in September, launching a 12,916-square-foot space mixing medical clinic, spa, gym and restaurant. The concept will be replicated at the end of the year in Singapore via a 15,069-square-foot space housed at the Mett Hotels & Resorts hospitality structure.

Overall, Caterino said that the Middle-East and Far East will represent the biggest push for the company, with more than 25 and 16 new openings planned for the next five years, respectively. In particular, the company will target the United Arab Emirates, as well as Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia.

“Our concept best applies to big cities,” said Caterino eyeing a rollout also in European capitals that would bring the overall count of city clinics to more than 70 locations globally in five years. 

He addressed the more frequent demand for The Longevity Suite’s services in the metropolitan setting, with the company’s targeting managers, entrepreneurs, businessmen and businesswomen aged 40 to 55. Women account for 60 percent out of its total 27,000 active members.

“They tend to approach us for the same issues but then look for different results: women look more to aesthetics and body shape, men look for less stress and better sleep management, for example,” Caterino said. “But for us longevity means helping you get the best psycho-physic performance, independently from your age, with the ultimate goal [to enhance] the quality of life.”

For those who can’t reach The Longevity Suite’s brick-and-mortar outposts, the company will launch a digital membership next year to provide access to its experts’ know-how and coaching remotely, after having sent the Longevity Check-up kit at home.

As for its branded products — which range from supplements to cosmetics, from healthy snacks to kits for fasting and detox — Caterino envisions an average of five new launches per year. Currently, they are still mainly available at the company’s physical outposts and its online store. While the firm dipped its toes into a wider distribution with LuisaViaRoma for its skincare line, for the moment the executive wants to keep the distribution selective “as our project and products needs to be explained and communicated properly.”

Caterino said current investors in the company have all been The Longevity Suite’s customers first. These include the likes of Gucci’s former president and CEO Marco Bizzarri and current chairman of Elisabetta Franchi; Style Capital SGR founding partner and CEO Roberta Benaglia and Technogym’s president and founder Nerio Alessandri. Among the most recent investors are Guido Barilla, president of the famed pasta-maker powerhouse bearing his surname; Vittorio Bertazzoni, owner and CEO of design appliance company Smeg, and the American private investment firm InterAlpen Partners. At the end of 2022, Azimut Libera Impresa also took a 30 percent stake in the company. 

“They are all forward-thinking investors and in for the long run rather than eager to monetize…giving us a chance to grow gradually, step by step. They know that the longevity business has just started and is at the beginning of a curve that will grow significantly in the next 10 years,” Caterino said. “When we started, no one talked about it, now everybody overuses the term. There’s much money in this industry, everybody wants to invest in it but there’s not much to buy because some projects still have to be launched.”