The clubs that will own the back half of 2026 are not the ones adding another themed buffet night. They are the ones rebuilding their programming calendar around how members actually want to live — together, well, and with less alcohol than the last generation drank. The signals are clear in the data: Preferred Hotels & Resorts reports that 71 percent of luxury travelers are planning cross-generational trips in the coming years, and Coldwell Banker’s 2025 Trend Report shows that 45 percent of Luxury Property Specialists named flexible home layouts a top luxury design feature. Members increasingly want their primary residence, their vacation home, and their club to all serve three generations at once.
Here are the ten programming shifts shaping clubhouse life this summer.
1. Multi-Generational Wellness Becomes the Anchor Amenity
The strongest trend in private hospitality this year is also the most operationally demanding: families want to pursue wellness together. The European Spa Leaders’ Resource 2026 documents an industry-wide pivot, with properties from Therme Group to Joali Being in the Maldives and Grand Resort Bad Ragaz in Switzerland building dedicated multi-generational wellness programming. Piyarat Tanjaputkul, executive vice-president of health and wellness at RXV Wellness Village, frames it this way:
“Inter-generational wellness retreats are being driven by a desire for meaningful reconnection through shared wellbeing experiences. They create meaningful opportunities for families to reconnect, free from distraction.”
For clubs, this means rethinking the spa as a single-purpose adult amenity. The European Spa report highlights programming that works across ages — recreational activities, fitness classes, nature walks, art, storytelling, mindfulness, yoga, sound healing, and breathwork. Karen Campbell of Jayasom warns operators of a structural risk: when you design family wellness poorly, “adults just become the chaperones and never get a moment for themselves.” The fix is layout, scheduling, and dedicated facilities for younger guests.
2. The Sober-Curious Member Reshapes the Bar P&L
Clubs that still treat the wine list as the centerpiece of social programming are programming for a shrinking audience. According to Insightace Analytic, cited in the European Spa Leaders’ Resource 2026, the global market for low and non-alcoholic drinks was valued at around $25 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach $46 billion by 2034. Millennials and Gen Z are leading the swap, especially in the US, UK, and Europe.
Harrison Hide, co-founder of Long Lane — a UK alcohol-free private members’ club due to open in 2026 — captures the cultural shift:
“People are more aware that alcohol undermines the sleep, clarity and performance they increasingly prioritise, especially as wellness habits rise. Younger generations drink less but still seek community through running clubs, wellness events and activity-based gatherings.”
What this looks like on the floor: a real mocktail menu (not three sad options buried under the cocktail list), zero-proof pairings at wine dinners, sober social events, and — borrowed from the spa world — sober sauna raves and Champneys-style “Self Care in Sobriety” retreats adapted for member weekends.
3. AI Concierge Moves From Novelty to Infrastructure
The Salesforce State of the AI Connected Customer (7th Edition) frames the moment plainly: AI is reshaping every aspect of the customer experience, sparking both enthusiasm and apprehension, and as AI agents become mainstream, that transformation accelerates. For clubs, the highest-leverage use is not a chatbot bolted onto the website. It is an internal assistant that knows every member’s preferences, allergies, anniversaries, golf handicap, regular tee time partners, and last six dining visits — and surfaces that to staff at the moment of service.
Karen Campbell, writing in the European Spa Leaders’ Resource 2026, points to where this gets interesting: “Advances in AI now allow us to reach insights that were previously hidden or lost, be they medical, behavioural or in marketing. The seeds of innovation lie within the data and the way it enables a provider to connect with multi-generational guests.”
4. Programming for the Gen X Member Becomes a Strategic Priority
The Coldwell Banker Global Luxury 2026 Trend Report makes a quiet but consequential point: Gen X is the primary recipient of a near-term U.S. real estate wealth transfer estimated at $2.4 trillion over the next decade, with Millennials positioned to inherit the largest share over the longer term. Gen X luxury homeownership had already climbed 10 percent in five years — the largest gain of any age group — and the cohort is now the most prevalent among Coldwell Banker’s luxury buyers.
This is the cohort sandwiched between aging parents and adult children at home, the same one driving the multi-generational housing trend. They want clubs that can host a Sunday brunch with a 78-year-old mother and a 22-year-old daughter at the same table — and offer separate programming tracks the next morning. They are also, per Coldwell Banker, prioritizing wellness amenities, smart-home technology, and indoor/outdoor living. In Coldwell Banker’s 2025 Trend Report, over 60 percent of Luxury Property Specialists ranked the indoor/outdoor connection among the most popular luxury design features — up 10 percentage points year over year.
5. Family-First Spa Design Replaces Adults-Only Sanctuaries
The European Spa report names the operators redrawing the playbook: Therme Group’s therapeutic water and thermal facilities paired with cultural activities and healthy nutrition; Zulal Wellness Resort by Chiva-Som in Qatar with its Zulal Discovery programming; Finisterra Spa at Martinhal Sagres in Portugal; and Joali Being’s B’Kidult playground for all ages. Hotel brands including Rosewood and 1Hotels are catering specifically to teens, while Kerzner International is going all-in on families.
For private clubs, the implication is straightforward — and the European Spa report puts it bluntly: “Properties catering to families have the opportunity to extend their wellness services to a wider demographic. With good planning and communication, new revenue streams can flow from this growing trend.”
6. Multi-Generational Dining Replaces the Adults-Only Grill
Growth Market Reports’ 2026 analysis of the global private club membership market segments dining into Fine Dining, Bars & Lounges, and Private Events — but the family segmentation it tracks (Couples, Families with Kids) tells the operating story. The clubs winning the dining vote are designing menus, layouts, and service flow that let three generations eat the same meal in the same room without anyone feeling out of place.
Practically, that means:
- Kids’ menus that share ingredients and technique with the adult menu, not chicken-finger ghettos
- Tables that genuinely seat 8–12, not just 4-tops shoved together
- Earlier dinner service blocks for families with young children, with later, quieter rooms for adult members
- Zero-proof pairings on the wine list (see Trend 2)
7. Racquets, Recovery, and Aquatics Eclipse the Single-Sport Identity
Growth Market Reports’ segmentation of the Sports & Fitness application breaks the category into Gym, Racquet Sports, Aquatics, and Wellness & Recovery — and each one is now its own programming line, not a footnote under “fitness.” Clubs that historically defined themselves by golf or one racquet code are layering pickleball courts, padel, cold plunges, saunas, recovery rooms, and lap lanes used for both swim teams and adult masters classes.
The Growth Market Reports taxonomy also flags Premium Fitness Clubs and Racquet & Sports Clubs as discrete sub-segments inside the Athletic Clubs category — a useful reminder that members increasingly compare your facility against a dedicated boutique, not against the country club across town.
8. Local, Lower-Footprint Programming Replaces the Far-Flung Member Trip
Karen Campbell of Jayasom describes a clear shift in member behavior: “There’s already a trend for more local wellness experiences, with fewer airports, and transfers, and more time doing the part that really makes a difference.” Her operating philosophy — zero waste, zero waste water, food-mile goals, locally produced goods, and “being a good neighbour” — is increasingly what affluent members say they want from the institutions they belong to.
For clubs, this means the member trip program that used to lean on a charter to Tuscany now competes with a curated three-day stay at a regional vineyard, a local farm-to-table weekend, or a thermal spa partnership 90 minutes from the clubhouse. Knight Frank’s Wealth Report 2025 documents the same dynamic on the supply side, noting how the North Fork of Long Island has become “a real destination” because of its proximity to Manhattan and demand for local food and drink.
9. Co-Working and Business Networking Get Built Into the Clubhouse
The Growth Market Reports application taxonomy now lists Co-working alongside Executive Events and Client Entertainment under Business Networking — a meaningful change from older frameworks that treated work-from-club as ad hoc. Members who run businesses, work hybrid schedules, or travel frequently are looking at the clubhouse as a fourth office: better food than WeWork, better Wi-Fi than the airline lounge, and people they actually know.
Knight Frank’s Wealth Report 2026 reinforces who is in that prospect pool. The global population of ultra-high-net-worth individuals — those worth more than US$30 million — climbed to 713,626 in 2026, up 162,191 in five years, or roughly 89 people crossing that threshold every day. The report describes a “transformation economy” in which younger, wealthy consumers prize wellness, experience, and exclusivity over status — and in which private clubs and hospitality operators increasingly compete on curated, long-term engagement. Those members run businesses and work hybrid schedules. Bookable phone rooms, daytime menus designed for laptop diners, and quiet zones with strong network coverage are no longer optional.
10. Programming Becomes a Material Driver of Member Economics
The scale here is worth restating. According to the Club Benchmarking 2024 Economic Impact Report for CMAA, 3,887 US private clubs with revenue over $1 million generated an estimated $32.6 billion in revenue in 2023, with $17.4 billion in payroll across roughly 573,000 employees. Members also injected an estimated $5 billion of capital into clubs in the form of initiation fees and assessments. Eighty-two percent of those clubs have golf as an amenity, but it’s the non-golf programming — wellness, dining, racquets, family experiences, business networking — that is increasingly determining whether prospects sign and members stay.
The Growth Market Reports 2026 study calls out the same operational priorities in its Key Insights chapter: membership pricing and tier strategy benchmarking, digital member engagement and CRM best practices, experience design across wellness and racquet sports and culinary and cultural programming, real estate co-location with hotels and residences and workspaces, and partnerships and reciprocity networks. None of those are golf course capital projects. All of them are programming decisions.
What to Do Next
The throughline across all ten trends is the same: the member of summer 2026 is younger than the membership roll suggests, more sober than the bar program assumes, more health-driven than the F&B P&L reflects, and more likely to bring a parent and a child to the same event than the calendar plans for. Clubs that audit their summer programming against those four facts — and rebuild from there — will find themselves with the most enviable problem in the industry: a waitlist.
