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

cybernetics (an international Health Tourism Sector think and do tank)
(Constantinides,2009:13);
1) Medical Tourism
2) Dental Tourism
3) Spa (and Thalassotherapy) Tourism
4) Wellness and Fitness Tourism
5) Sports Tourism
6) Culinary Tourism
7) Accessible Tourism
8) Assisted Residential Tourism
Typologies of health and wellness tourism vary as does the health, medical and wellness
tourism. “Several scholars do not differentiate between wellness tourism and medical tourism
and subsume wellness-related categories under medical tourism. For instance, one typology
suggests the four medical tourism categories of ‘Illness’ (e.g. medical check-ups, medical
surgery, dental treatment), ‘Wellness’ (e.g. beauty care, spa treatment, yoga, herbal healing),
‘Enhancement’ (e.g. cosmetic surgery) and ‘Reproduction’ (e.g. fertility treatment and birth
tourism) (Voight et. al, 2010:30). As another example, in their textbook typologies of health
and wellness tourism is stated as (Smith & Puckzo, 2009:85): Leisure Spa tourism (e.g.
therapeutic medical, hotel, resort, resting, day spa) Holistic tourism (e.g. retreat, yoga centre)
Medical tourism (e.g. surgery) Spiritual tourism (e.g. pilgrimage, meditation, yoga, retreat,
spiritual quest) Occupational wellness tourism (e.g. life-coaching, recuperation, stress
management)
The global health tourism industry revenuer make up to US$40 billion 2005, US$60 billion in
2006 and is projected to grow at US$ 100 billion in 2012 and US$ 188 billion in 2013
according to different resources (Zoref, 2006; Herrick, 2007:1). The growth is due to; aging
populations, high cost of medical services, shortage of health care professionals and long
waiting periods in developed countries, and, on the other, improved medical technology,
competitive healthcare prices, and rest & relaxation in exotic destinations in developing
countries.
In order to attain customer satisfaction in health tourism, it is important that the supplier does
meet the individual expectations of the patient since each patient may have different
individual expectation some of the individual expectations may be (Edelheit, 2009);
1) the customer looks for less costly treatment / procedure than his/her own country,
2) may be embarrassed to get surgery at home (eg. wants to keep it secret that he/she had
cosmetic surgery)
3) may want privacy during treatment and recovery processes,
4) may look for high standards and level of quality which is unaffordable at home.
The basic expectations for health and wellness tourists do vary a lot, and some may be added
below in addition to the ones stated before (Kaur, 2007:421; Yıldırım, 2005; Pırnar, 2007:35-
38):
• Hygienic environment
• Standardization and quality of the services
• Range of services
• Highly qualified staff ( trained technically as well as in soft skills)
• Value proposition
• Customization