Health, Wellness and Tourism: healthy tourists, healthy business ...

Literature Review
Health and Spa Tourism
In recent years, many researches have been undertaken in addressing the issues related to
population health and health tourism. Smith and Puczko (2009) suggested that health tourism
can be viewed from two different perspectives, which are medical and wellness. Spa is one of
the sub sectors of health tourism which positioned in between medical and wellness,
depending on the purposes and types of treatments received when visiting spas. There are
many studies related to health tourism, especially in the field of medical tourism, but very
limited on health, spa and wellness that can be found in tourism literature. Nonetheless, the
studies focused on the development, marketing and positioning the spa establishments – the
supply side, rather than the demand side of health and spa goers/tourists.
According to Mcneil and Ragins (2004), spa participation in the United Stated of America is
showing an incredible growth in the early 1990s when the participation in gyms and health
clubs for fitness slowed down. The researchers stated that many consumers turn to spa
facilities as venues to improve their health and well-being, and the industry continues to grow
at amazing rates and marketing opportunities abound. They highlighted the current issues and
trends in the US spa industry, which the major challenges would be; (i) to meet the
consumers’ needs effectively as a shift in paradigm in spa concept – from indulgence to
wellness, (ii) to stay abreast of the changes in the spa consumer profile; as spa facilities
nowadays are not only cater to women, but also to men, and cater to all age-group of people,
(iii) to provide a more comprehensive array of treatments, services, and activities combined in
a highly conceptualized setting, and (iv) to stay up to date with technological advances in
provision of spa information to prospective consumers. The researchers suggested the uses of
strategies and techniques that respond to consumers’ demands, in the context of target
markets and the four Ps – product, place, promotion and price. They concluded that the spa
marketers must remain flexible and adapt to changes of spa users’ wants and needs, and
continue to improve communications about the spa experience and its benefits.
In line with aforementioned, Chon and Singh (1995) provided a review of trends in marketing
the resorts in USA. One of the product development trends they highlighted was the one that
evolved health awareness – concerns about personal health and fitness which increased the
demand for health-related holidays. Consequently the resorts are adjusting their amenities and
services to accommodate the health demands on vacationer, such as fitness facilities and
health spas have been added to release stress and improve nutrition and physical conditioning.
Moreover, they also stated that the presence of spa at a resort was cited as a primary reason
for drawing them. The trend is expected to continue as more and more people travel for health
reasons to resorts and spas which provides fully monitored and individualized beauty
treatments, and health programs.
Tourist Motivation
Motivation has long been a central subject of study in psychology from varieties of ways,
including from the physiological, psychological or philosophical approaches (Petri and
Govern, 2004: 3-14). The study of motivation is widely being used in understanding human
behaviour and can be found in the literature of many disciplines. Likewise in tourism, the
concept of motivation has been used in understanding tourist behaviours and their travel
decision-making which can be indicative to tourism providers as to attract tourists and fulfil
their needs during their travel at a particular destination.