What's really driving growth in European salons, spas, and aesthetic clinics in 2026

At a glance: Key takeaways

Based on aggregated performance data from European salons, spas, and aesthetic clinics throughout 2025, here is what Zenoti’s 2026 Beauty and Wellness Benchmark Report: Europe found:

• Europe’s beauty and wellness industry grew 7% in 2025, outpacing North America’s 6% for total revenue growth.
• Like-for-like revenue grew just 2% across both regions; almost all of Europe’s additional growth came from new centre openings.
• Salons delivered 6% same-store revenue growth, the strongest of any segment, with zero net new locations.
• New guest visits fell 7% across all European segments; retention is now the primary growth engine.
• Top-earning European salons generate nearly 23x the revenue of median businesses.
  

For four years, Zenoti's Beauty and Wellness Benchmark Report has helped North American operators understand how they compare and where to focus next. Now, for the first time, that same lens is being applied to Europe.

Drawn from aggregated performance data across European salons, spas, and aesthetic clinics for 2025, it's the clearest picture yet of how the region's operators are growing, where they're falling behind, and what separates the businesses at the top of the distribution from everyone else.

Here's a first look at what the Zenoti 2026 Beauty and Wellness Benchmark Report: Europe data shows, and how it compares to what we're seeing in North America.

Growth is happening, but not where you might expect

Europe's beauty and wellness industry grew 7% in 2025 outpacing North America's 6% total revenue growth — a healthy headline number. But dig deeper and the story gets more nuanced: Like-for-like revenue (from existing locations) grew just 2%, the same figure as North America. Almost all of the additional growth in Europe came from new centre openings.

The standout exception is salons. With zero net new openings, they delivered the strongest like-for-like revenue growth of any segment at 6%. In North America, salons also punched above their weight, pairing strong same-store growth with active location expansion. The signal is consistent across both markets: the salon model is working.

“"Customers across the region have told us they want benchmarks grounded in their own market: patterns drawn from comparable businesses, and figures that reflect the realities of how they operate day to day."

Geraldine Fusciardi, SVP – GM, International, Zenoti”

New guests are getting harder to find — everywhere

In North America, new guest visits fell across the industry in 2025, averaging -10%. Europe tells a similar story: new guest visits dropped 7% across all three segments in the report, with declines ranging from -3% at aesthetic clinics to -9% at salons.

What's different is what's happening on the other side of the ledger. European existing guest visits rose 4% — a stronger retention story than the North American weighted average of +2%. Aesthetic clinics in Europe were the standout, with existing guest visits up 10%.

The takeaway is the same in both markets: Retention is now the primary growth engine. Businesses built around keeping guests coming back are outperforming those still chasing new ones.

Top earners look very different from the rest

The European benchmark data reports percentile tiers — Top Earners (90th), High Achievers (75th), and Median Businesses (50th), and the gaps are striking.

Top-earning European salons generate nearly 23 times the revenue of the median . A significant part of that gap comes down to digital adoption: Top earners book 77% of appointments online versus 40% at the median. Utilisation tells a similar story — 83% versus 53%.

For spas, the defining metric at the top of the distribution is utilisation: top earners run at 88% capacity. For aesthetic clinics, it's rebooking — top-earning clinics rebook 63% of clients versus 34% at the median. That's the widest rebooking gap of any segment in the report, and it points to a clear lever for clinics not yet near the top tier.

What the data means for European operators

The North America report identified four traits shared by top-performing businesses: they build retention into operations, lean into technology, focus on the right metrics for their business type, and expand where demand supports it.

The European data adds important regional texture to that picture — showing, for instance, that aesthetic clinics in Europe are in a rapid expansion phase (20% centre growth) even as like-for-like revenue dips, while salons are growing with no net change in location count. The strategies that work depend heavily on where you sit in that landscape.

The full Zenoti 2026 Beauty and Wellness Benchmark Report: Europe edition goes deeper on all of this, with segment-specific benchmarks, digital adoption data, and practical guidance on where to focus first.