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

16. Increasing interest in
alternative treatments
17. Increasing interest in
staying young and healthy
Threats (T)
1. Competition (especially
when offers better quality/
sophisticated service)
2. Demand for highest
quality, luxury, comfort
3. Wars and conflicts near
the region
4. Terrorist attacks all over
the world
5. Prices dropping in
competitive suppliers
6. Crises related to diseases
like swine flue, etc.
7. Natural deterioration &
pollution in thermal
regions
8. Water pollution, air
pollution, soil pollution
S/T Strategies
1.Keep up with the trends
and satisfy changing
customer demands
2. Market aggressively and
have a strategic marketing
plan.
3. Application of industry
accreditation standards
4.Use new management,
unique product and brand
power, and new partnerships
to match competition’s
increasing power
5.Use product’s differential
advantage, apply marketing
strategies to build brand
loyalty.
6.Offer interesting, tailormade
and unique travel
packages alternatives for
health tourists.
7. Consider ways to package
and promote visitor
experiences to potential
international spa and
wellness visitors
W/T Strategies
1.Special attention should be
given to hygine and quality
issues
3.Use crisis management
tools for overcoming
inconsistent image of the
region
4.Form a consistent message,
to match competitions image
as being better in terms of
quality- value proposition
etc.
5. Use all the combinations
of 8 P’s that is suitable
6. Apply a coordinated
regional policy and
promotional approach to
develop health tourism in
Izmir
7.Establish intra regional
cooperation to enhance
productivity and take
advantage of economies of
scale
Findings and Conclusion
The findings indicated that health tourism is indeed a very suitable tourism sub sector for
Izmir since all respondents mentioned so. There seems to be huge potential since the city
strong points like unique and curable thermal resources, already established health tourism
centers, proper climate that is suitable all year long, unique geography and heritage resources,
base for clustering in health tourism, appropriate infrastructure. The replies on the optimal
usage though showed that the interviewee mostly (only 3 disagreed) believed that though the
city has a huge potential for health tourism to improve, this potential is not utilized fully. The
reasons were stated as;
• The framework of health tourism in Izmir is very narrowly defined
• Most of the existing hotels are not designed specific to health tourism standards
and requirements
• There is a lack of coordination among responsible bodies
• There is a need for common policy regarding the health tourism
• Izmir needs proper positioning, imaging and branding for health tourism.