1. What Is Wellness Tourism?
1.1. Terminology
Wellness tourism is used instead of health tourism in order to avoid the confusion between medical tourism. In research conduct by industries of Wellness and Medical tourism (GSS, 2011), argue that the term health tourism is sometimes used to describe medical tourism; other time it is used synonymously with wellness tourism; sometimes it means both; and it is also used to refer to a subset of medical tourism or wellness tourism. This is why it is recommended to avoid the use of health tourism term, especially in marketing purposes and communication with customers.
1.2. Definition of Wellness
According to World health organization (WHO, 1948)
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Important note here in that good physical condition or non-existence of disease doesn't directly mean person is in good health, but the health is balanced combination of all aspects mentioned by WHO; physical, mental and social well-being. National Institute of Wellness (NWI) instead defines wellness as following,
“Wellness is an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices to-ward, a more successful existence.” (Nationalwellness.org)
In this definition it is not specified what exactly makes “more successful existence” possible, which leaves room for different approaches. As in this thesis, business plan will be done from meditation retreat.
1.3. Definition of Wellness Tourism and Tourist
1.3.1. Wellness TourismActivities are called tourism when a person travels outside of his/hers normal environment for business, leisure or other purposes and stay there less than a year. (Gilmore, 2003). Definition
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of tourist used by Gilmore is a person who stays at least one night in private or collective ac-commodation in the place visited.
According to GSS report (GSS, 2011) tourism is called wellness tourism when people involved are travelling to place outside of their normal environment to in order to participate activities which maintain or enhance their health and well-being and arelooking for unique, authentic or location-based experiences or therapies which are not available at home.
Muller and Lanz definition for wellness tourism is following:
“Wellness tourism is a sum of all the relationships and phenomena resulting from a journey and residence by people whose main motive is to preserve or promote their health. They stay in a specialized hotel which provides the appropriate professional know-how and individual care.
They require a comprehensive service package comprising physical fitness/beauty care, healthy nutrition/diet, relaxation/meditation and mental activity/education.”(Muller and Lanz, 2001, pp.3).
However their research is based on the idea that wellness tourism is considered as a part of health tourism, therefore their definition is based on the definition of health tourism by Kaspar.
They narrowed the Kaspar's definition by adding the specification about hotels in it, as they feel the holistic approach to wellness during the holidays is easiest to observe in hotels specialized in wellness services. (Muller and Lanz, 2001).
1.3.2. Wellness Tourist
Global spa summit research summaries the wellness tourism motivation as following: Gen-erally seeking integrated wellness and prevention approaches to improve their health/quality of life. “Compared this to definition of a medical tourist, the notable difference is that wellness tourists are not necessary physically ill or doesn't want any tremendous change as surgical or cosmetic operations. It is more likely that they do want to learn something or looking for a ways to prevent possible illnesses or pain. (GSS, 2011).
Müller and Lenz-Kaufmann (2001) defined four different tourist types in wellness tourism:
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Demanding health guest: Is generally over 48 years old woman tourist travelling without their partners. She is primary looking for a health promotion and values highly professional and competent care, availability of relevant information and comprehensive wellness infrastructure.
Independent infrastructure user: Generally men, who appreciate more the extensive and functional wellness facilities than professional know-how or good customer care. Care-inten-sive cure guest: 60% of care-intenCare-inten-sive customers are women and they are primarily looking for healing, therapy and/or recovery services. They want to get individual, professional care and advices; also are the ones who have the longest average stays.
Relevance of the recreation and/or health: The smallest type group, who also have the lowest expectations regarding the wellness services. They only want to relax and enjoy of their time.
Push and pull factor model is the most widely accepted typology of tourist motivation. This model focuses on two forces- push and pull, which influence on tourist's decision of where to travel. Push factors are so called internal forces or motives which push persons from their home to search activities to fulfil their needs. Pull factors are the attributes and features, already ex-isting image and knowledge of the destination what person have and pull one towards it.
The push factors are mostly intangible and intrinsic desires. These factors are useful in explain-ing the want of travel as they help understand the basis of the tourism behaviour. Pull factors are generally more tangible features and more decisive factors of understanding the choice of destination. (Konu and Laukkanen, 2010, Woodside and Martin 2008)
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consuming life style and people's purchase power has led many people to seek for better ways to take care of themselves. Different wellness theories and practices start to be more widely accepted and people are more open to less “modern” wellness concepts, like spiritual practices.GSS (GSS.2010) listed 3 mega trends which have greatly affected to the growth of wellness markets:
Ageing people: In developed countries 60 years and older people outnumbered children under 15 in 1998 and it is estimate that in 2047 older people will outnumber children worldwide.
Older people mean more health problems and these baby boomers are interested to try new ways of prevent, maintain wellness or prevent the illnesses as there is not as many youngster looking after them.
Unhealthy people: Even people are living longer; they more likely live with an illness or die for one, which is often cause at least partly because of their lifestyle habits. World is more industrial and urbanized, which have caused that people diets are unhealthy and lifestyle less active. Often people are also stressed out because of the hectic nature of today's life and tech-nology (e.g. smart phones, tablets, laptops etc.) have made it even harder to take off from the rat race.
Failing medical systems: Partly because of the two reasons mentioned above, providing a functional and equal health care system is becoming more and more challenging in developed countries because of the high demand. It is said that maybe failing to offer proper care by gov-ernment, people have started more actively search options outside of the normal health-care system.
Globalization and connection: The cost of travelling and time needed to it has decreased, which has obviously made it more attractive for consumer in wellness industry as well. People also have an access to new information easier and they are more likely to meet people from different destinations. It is more likely people are exposed to new approaches to healthiness and wellness and decide to act on it. (GGS, 2010)