TEXT 97

Health consumerism

保护消费者健康权益

The wellness boom

健康产业飞速发展（陈继龙编译）

Jan 4th 2007 | NEW YORK

From The Economist print edition

Helping consumers to lead healthy lifestyles is becoming a big business

引导消费者健康生活潮流的行业越做越大。

BACK in 1979, a fat, unhealthy property developer, Mel Zuckerman, and his exercise-fanatic wife, Enid, opened Canyon Ranch, “America's first total vacation/fitness resort”, on an old dude[1]ranch in Tucson, Arizona. At the time, their outdoorsy, new age-ish venture seemed highly eccentric. Today Canyon Ranch is arguably the premium health-spa brand of choice for the super-rich. It is growing fast and now operates in several places, including the Queen Mary 2. It is also one of the leading lights in “wellness”, an increasingly mainstream—and profitable—business.

事情要追溯到1979年，身胖体虚的房地产开发商梅尔•扎克尔曼和他喜欢运动的妻子艾妮德开办了Canyon Ranch。这是“美国首个纯粹的度假和健身胜地”，位于亚利桑那州图森的一个老的度假农场上。那时，他们冒险投资这一具有新时代特征、倡导户外活动的行业似乎非常不合正轨。照现在看来，Canyon Ranch已经成为那些富豪们温泉疗养的首选去处。它发展迅速，现已在好几个地方开展业务，其中包括“玛丽皇后二世”。它也是“健康产业”的领跑者之一，而后者正日益成为一个有利可图的主流行业。

“There is a new market category called wellness lifestyle, and in a whole range of industries, if you are not addressing that category you are going to find it increasingly hard to stay in business,” enthuses Kevin Kelly, Canyon Ranch's president. (Mr Zuckerman, now a trim and sprightly[2] 78-year-old, remains chairman of the firm.) This broad new category, Mr Kelly goes on, “consolidates a lot of sub-categories” including spas, traditional medicine and alternative medicine, behavioural therapy, spirituality, fitness, nutrition and beauty. （1）As more customers demand a holistic approach to feeling well, firms that have hitherto specialised in only one or two of those areas are now facing growing market pressure to broaden their business. “You can no longer satisfy the consumer with just fitness, just medical, just spa,” says Mr Kelly.

“如今市场出现了一个新领域，它倡导健康生活方式。就所有产业而言，假如你置此领域于不顾，你就会发现要想在商业中立足会越来越难。” Canyon Ranch总经理凯文•凯利热情洋溢地说。（扎克尔曼仍是董事长，78岁的他现在身体状况良好，精力充沛。）凯利接着说，这一新型市场领域内容广泛，“包罗万象”，其中包括温泉疗养、传统和新型医疗、行为疗法、精神疗法、健身、营养以及美容。由于越来越多的消费者讲求整体健康，因此对于那些至今仍然局限于以上一两项内容的公司而言，扩大业务的市场压力日益增大，难以回避。凯利说：“健身也好，医疗也好，温泉疗养也罢，单靠哪一个都不再能够满足消费者。”

Canyon Ranch's strategy reflects this belief. It is expanding a brand built on $1,000-a-night retreats for the rich and famous in several different directions. This year in Miami Beach it will open the first of what it expects to be many upmarket housing estates built around a spa, called Canyon Ranch Living. Together with the Cleveland Clinic, one of the world's leading private providers of traditional medicine, it is launching an “executive health” product which combines diagnosis, treatment and, above all, prevention. It also has plans to produce food and skin-care products, a range of clothes and healthy-living educational materials.

凯利的这一观念在Canyon Ranch的战略中得到了印证。该公司以为富人名流提供每晚1000美金的休养服务为基础，正朝数个不同方向拓展自己的品牌。今年，它将在迈阿密海滩开发首批有望成为众多上流人士居住地的房地产项目。这些房地产位于一个名叫“峡谷农场生活空间”的温泉周围。它还会同提供传统医疗服务的全球私营医疗先驱——克利弗兰医疗中心，正在开发一个集诊断、治疗和预防于一体的“健康管理”产品。它还计划生产食品、护肤品、各种服装以及健康生活教育资料。

Already, the new world of wellness is becoming fiercely competitive. Canyon Ranch's rivals include several big, established firms. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin group operates Virgin Life Care kiosks[3] in which people can earn spendable HealthMiles. Insurers such as WellPoint and Britain's PruHealth are rewarding people who take part in health-improvement programmes with lower premiums or bigger deductibles. Wal-Mart is selling organic food, and even Coca-Cola is launching a wellness drink.

健康产业这一新领域的竞争已经越来越激烈。Canyon Ranch的对手包括数家根基已经十分牢固的大型公司。理查德•布兰逊爵士的Virgin集团开办了Virgin生活呵护凉亭，在那里人们能挣到可供消费的“健康里程”。WellPoint和英国PruHealth等保险公司正在为那些参加健康促进活动的人们提供奖赏，比如较低的保险金或者较高的免赔额。沃尔玛也在销售有机食品，就连可口可乐也正开发一种健康饮料。

Perhaps the most interesting entrant to this nascent[4] industry is Revolution, a firm set up in 2005 by Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, an internet firm. （2）He is attacking on several fronts, mostly by buying controlling stakes in small firms that have a big idea and a viable business model, and helping them to grow faster. One of these is Miraval-Life In Balance, a similar outfit to Canyon Ranch, which he hopes to turn into the “Nike brand of wellness” by expanding from its spas, which offer 130 different experiences from yoga to organic cuisine. New initiatives include Miraval Living residential estates—one opens soon in Manhattan—skin-care lotions and food. Revolution also owns Lime.com, a wellness broadcaster, and Exclusive Resorts, presumably on the grounds that luxury holidays are good for you.

入行不久、但在这一新生产业中最引人注目的大概要数史蒂夫•凯泽于2005年建立的Revolution公司。凯泽是互联网公司AOL（美国在线）的创始人之一。他正向数个领域发起冲击，大都是通过收购小公司的可控股并帮助它们加快发展速度来进行。这些公司虽然小，但抱负大，其商业模式也具有较强的可行性。Miraval-Life In Balance就是其中之一，类似于Canyon Ranch，但规模要小得多。它的温泉疗养中心可以提供包括瑜伽、有机烹饪在内的130种不同的服务。凯泽希望拓展这个温泉疗养中心，使其成为“健康产业的耐克品牌”。先期采取的措施包括开发Miraval Living住宅用房产（有一家即将在曼哈顿开盘）以及生产护肤液和食品。Revolution旗下还有健康产业广播公司Lime.com和提供豪华度假服务的Exclusive Resorts。

In addition, Mr Case is rolling out Revolution Health, a consumer health-care business. （3）It will offer online health information, insurance policies and new forms of health care, including walk-in treatment and screening in shops such as Wal-Mart, through its investment in a firm called RediClinic. Mr Case's partners in the venture include Colin Powell, a former secretary of state; Carly Fiorina, the ex-boss of Hewlett-Packard; and Jim Barksdale, a former head of Netscape.

此外，凯泽还准备开展一项名为“健康革命”的消费者保健业务。业务通过投资于RediClinic公司进行，服务内容包括在线健康信息、保险单以及新式保健如随到随治（无需预约）、在沃尔玛等商场进行（食品安全？健康？）检测等。凯泽的投资合作伙伴包括美前国务卿科林•鲍威尔、惠普公司前总裁卡利•菲奥里纳以及Netscape前董事长吉姆•巴克斯代尔。

Doing well by helping you feel good

一切都为了消费者的健康

There is growing evidence that focusing holistically on wellness can reduce health-care costs by emphasising prevention over treatment. Mr Case reckons that one of the roots of today's health-care crisis, especially in America, is that prevention and care are not suitably joined up. A growing number of employers now promote wellness at work, both to cut costs and to reduce stress and health-related absenteeism, says Jon Denoris of Catalyst Health, a gym business in London. He has been helping the British arm of Harley Davidson, a motorbike-maker, to develop a wellness programme for its workers.

越来越多的证据表明，关注身心整体健康，强调预防重于治疗，能够降低医疗成本。凯泽估计，当今医疗危机的根源之一就在于没有将预防和保健与医疗恰当地结合，美国尤其如此。伦敦体育公司Catalyst Health的乔恩•德诺瓦说，越来越多的公司老板现在都鼓励健康工作，这样既可以降低成本，也可以减轻员工压力，减少因病旷工现象。德诺瓦一直以来都在帮助摩托车制造商Harley Davidson研究制定一个面向工人的健康计划。

（4）The desire to reduce health-care costs is one force behind the rise of the wellness industry; the other is the growing demand from consumers for things that make them feel healthier. Surveys find that three out of four adult Americans now feel that their lives are “out of balance”, says Mr Kelly. So there is a huge opportunity to offer them products and services that make them feel more “balanced”. This represents a big change in consumer psychology, claims Mr Kelly, and one that is likely to deepen over time: market research suggests that 35-year-olds have a much stronger desire to lead healthy lifestyles than 65-year-olds.

健康产业的推动力之一来自于人们对降低医疗成本的期望，另一个推动力则是消费者对那些有益健康的事物日益增长的需求。凯利说，调查发现，如今3/4的美国成年人认为他们的生活“失衡”。于是为他们提供让他们感觉更加“平衡”的产品和服务就成了一个巨大的市场机遇。凯利认为，这体现了消费者心理上的巨变，并且随着时间的推移，这种变化有可能进一步加剧——市场研究表明，35岁的人对健康生活方式的愿望比65岁的人更为强烈。

（5）One difficulty for wellness firms will be acquiring the expertise to operate in several different areas of the market. Another will be to maintain credibility in (and for) an industry that combines serious science with snake oil. One problem—or is it an opportunity?—in selling wellness products to consumers is that some of the things they demand may be faddish[5] or nonsensical. Easy fixes, such as new-age therapies, may appeal to them more than harder but proven ways to improve health. And there is much debate about the health benefits of vitamin supplements, organic food and alternative medicines, let alone different forms of spirituality.

对于经营健康产业的公司而言，要同时拥有经营几个不同市场领域的专门技术是他们面临的难题之一。此外，在严肃科学和伪科学（比如所谓能包治百病的万灵油）混为一体的行业中，要自觉保持诚信并赢得公众的信任也都是一件难事。向消费者销售健康产品还存在一个问题（抑或是一种机遇？），那就是消费者的需求有的是赶时髦，有的则莫名其妙。相比那些操作难度大但已经证实能有效改善健康的方法，简便易行的方法如新时代治疗技术对他们要更具有吸引力。而且，关于维生素补品、有机食品和新型医学对健康的益处的争论也颇多，更不用说形形色色的精神疗法了。

One of Canyon Ranch's answers to this problem has been to hire Richard Carmona, who was America's surgeon-general until last summer. In that role, he moved prevention and wellness nearer to the centre of public-health policy. （6）The last time a surgeon-general ventured into business, it ended disastrously: during the internet bubble, Everett Koop launched DrKoop.com, a medical-information site that went bust[6] shortly after going public and achieving a market capitalisation of over $1 billion. This time around, the wellness boom seems unlikely to suffer such a nasty turn for the worse.

去年夏天，Canyon Ranch把美国国家卫生总监（Surgeon-general)理查德•卡尔莫纳请了来，以期解决这一问题。此人担任卫生总监时，就呼吁公共健康政策应以预防和保健为中心。上一次卫生总监涉足商圈最后不得善终——在互联网泡沫时代，埃弗雷特•库普发起了DrKoop.com医疗信息网站，但在公开募股并得到了超过10亿美元的市场资本之后不久便关门大吉了。不过这一次，健康产业的繁荣似乎不可能再像当年那样遭遇悲惨结局。

[QUIZ]

英译汉（将划线部分英文翻译成中文）：

[NOTES](LONGMAN)

1. dude n. (US)  city person, esp sb spending a holiday on a ranch 城里人（尤指在农场度假者）: [attrib 作定语] a dude ranch, ie one used as a holiday centre 度假农场.

2. sprightly adj. (-ier, -iest) lively and full of energy 活泼的; 精力充沛的: He's surprisingly sprightly for an old man. 他这把年纪了, 还这麽精神, 真了不起.

3. kiosk n.  1 small open structure where newspapers, refreshments, etc are sold （出售报纸、 饮料等的）小摊棚, 售货亭.  2 (dated 旧 Brit) public telephone box or booth 公用电话亭.

4. nascent adj. (fml 文) beginning to exist; not yet well developed 新生的; 初生的; 尚未成熟的; 尚不发达的: a nascent industry, talent, suspicion 新兴的工业、 新人才、 新发现的疑点.

5. faddish adj. (derog 贬) having peculiar likes and dislikes 有乖僻好恶的; 赶时髦的

6. bust adj. [pred 作表语] (infml 口)  1 broken; not working 毁坏; 不能操作: My watch is bust. 我的表坏了.  2 bankrupt 破产; 倒闭.  3 (idm 习语) go bust (of a person or a business) become bankrupt; fail financially （指人或企业）破产.