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

One of the available researches that directly linked to health and spa goers is of Mak and
Wong (2007), who examined the underlying factors that motivate Hong Kong travelers to
search for spa experiences while travelling away from Hong Kong. The structured
questionnaires were employed to conduct the survey and received a total of 302 responses.
The findings revealed that the Hong Kong spa goers perceived spa as a place for relaxation,
pampering, beautifying treatments, and enhancement of overall health. The motivation
factors; ‘relaxation and relief’, ‘escape’, ‘self-reward and indulgence’, and ‘health and beauty’
are the most important factors that motivate Hong Kong travelers to visit spas. The result was
found to be an integration of European spa goers health perspective and American spa goers
self rewarding perspective. The findings of their study provide researchers and practitioners in
the spa industry with useful insights into understanding the present nature of the demand of
spa in the Asian market.
On the contrary, there are studies integrating healthy lifestyle into consumer/tourists
behaviours by Gonzalez and Bello (2002) show that a strong dependency relationship
between tourists’ behaviours and lifestyle, and the segmentation of the market that emerged
makes a division into five clusters: home-loving, idealistic, independent, hedonistic and
conservative. The labels give a general idea of the lifestyle of each segment. Similarly, the
study by Hallab (2004) on healthy-living oriented lifestyle in the field of travel and tourism
show that the connection between healthy-living habits of US citizens and their travel
characteristics with respect to travel push and pull motivational factors and sociodemographics.
It revealed significant findings in regard to individuals who have a healthyliving
lifestyle and their travel behaviour and shed a light on their socio-demographic
characteristic. The researcher also suggested future researches to use more variables in
seeking to understand further the mentioned segment’s travel behaviour.
Page (2009: 88) stated that there is no all embracing theory of tourist motivation due to the
problem of simplifying complex psychological factors and behaviour into a universally
acceptable theory that can be tested and proved in various tourism contexts. In this study, the
concept of push and pull motivations is used to refer to the perceived importance of health
and spa services for international tourists during their holiday in Sabah, Malaysia. This
implies that certain reasons for health and spa services during travel may correspond to
certain benefits to the tourists that are to be valued and obtained at the destination site.
Therefore, the tourism providers, health and spa providers must understand the tourists with
regards to their health and spa perceptions, expectations and decisions; and so, matching the
destination’s health and spa attributes to the tourists’ diverse needs.
Research Methodology
Research Method and Study Site
The qualitative approach was used in this research to provide an insightful understanding of
the underlying motivation factors and perceptions that encourage the utilization of health and
spa services/facilities. Collis and Hussey (2003: 53) stated that the qualitative approach is
more subjective in nature and involved examining and reflecting on perceptions in order to
gain an understanding of social and human activities, which this research dealt with – the
tourists’ ideas, perceptions and involvement in health and spa during holiday. Moreover,
Weaver and Lawton (2002: 388) stated that the qualitative research is suited for situations
where little is known about the subject matter.