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

As consumers intend to slow down, to relax and relieve stress and search for new lifestyle
experiences, which could be achieved by various spa experiences (individual, tailor-made,
intimacy or just simply having fun services etc.). Market trend analysis (Mintel, WTO, ISPA)
strongly points out the boom in the usage of spas worldwide. This is strengthened by the fact
that the awareness of the health benefits of spas increase and target markets become more
inclusive. More active spa-goers are measured and also the proportion of consumers going on
spa holidays is growing.
However, as Erfurt-Cooper and Cooper (2009) summarize, all interpretations of wellness
“have its origin in a natural and holistic approach to health that includes the use of water and
minerals within it”.
Yet more issue to address is the fact that wellness itself became a powerful notion. Due to the
success of using wellness associated with fun and also luxury, it became an effective
marketing tool for other products. The following advertisements exemplify how wellness
became a brand component of various products from other sectors:
“This is
what one
now calls
wellness.”
“Astra—
got
anything
against
it?”
Figure 1. Wellness as a slogan for other sectors Source: Miller, MTW, 2008
“The first
wellness
concept based
on motor oil.”
“We build
your car —
the new Opel
Signum.”
The success behind wellness as an advertising tool is explained by a German advertising
expert Marc Schwieger: “Wellness exudes an irresistible sense of pleasure. Health is
connected with illness, fitness is connected with exertion, well-being sounds too much like a
couch-potato existence. Wellness, on the other hand, sounds dynamic, because it originated in
America” (Formádi-Miller, MTW, 2008). Thus, the use of wellness to market other
prestigious and/or hedonic products further strengthens its positive reception. As a result,
wellness is developing both in its scope and its differentiation.
Methodology
In order to get insight into the actual wellness trends and to unfold from these, the underlying
meta-trends of changing consumer interests we applied content analysis of lifestyle
magazines. We selected all articles which have been, in any form, related to any of the aspects
of wellness (as outlined in table 1.). The sample involved all 2008 issues of the following
Hungarian and international printed and online lifestyle magazines: