Everyone in retirement living now markets “wellness” now. Put it on a wall, in a brochure, over a pool and you can charge more – right? Not if residents and rivals are doing what they’ve started doing: looking past the sizzle to see if there’s any steak – and often there isn’t.

This week, we spoke with Roger Pallant, President of the NSW Retirement Village Residents Association.

He’s blunt about claims of delivering “wellness”: operators “fall over on action.” He says real action is when a village funds a visible, regular wellness presence – “a coordinator residents actually see” – and argues the role should be paid from the capital fund, not squeezed into admin or marketing.

Wellness vs wellbeing: overused words