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

Men Women
International
Playboy, Men’s Health
Elle Man
Cosmopolitan
Elle
CKM (online)
Éva, Patika, Nők Lapja Egészség,
Hungarian Deluxe (online)
Vital Magazin
Diéta és fitness
Table 1 Lifestyle magazines analysed
All in all 147 articles have been involved into the analysis. The texts have been carefully read
to identify any wellness-related issues. Major characteristics of discussing wellness were
noticed to create a list of issues. In a second step, these issues were discussed by the authors
to synthesise appearances of emerging trends and meta-trends. Finally, evidence from other
social science research fields (as demography, or the sociology of consumption) were sought
to underpin the outreach of the trends experienced in wellness.
The secondary research is extended with quantitative research based on a questionnaire
carried out among spa visitors in one of the most well known Hungarian spas, in Zalakaros to
point out the level of health-consciousness. The sample size was 330 spa visitors at the Gránit
Health Spa in Zalakaros. The data were collected between the 1st and 9th of May, 2009 based
on a questionnaire. Our main assumption was that the fun water is the more searched for
element for the Hungarian spa-goers rather than the regenerating or healing waters. The
Hungarian wellness spa-goers have not developed complex health-conscious attitude, they are
visiting spas because they seek enjoyment, fun and recreation but not for health reasons. The
importance of health-consciousness could be measured by the number of services used by the
visitors. If spa-goers pay only for the entrance fee and not for using wellness services from the
offer then they seek the entertainment elements only. Simply they visit the spas because it is
trendy and fashionable.
Fashions and trends in the magazines
In the following we unfold a number of meta-trends and trends associated with wellness as
emerging in over mentioned lifestyle magazines, first, to develop our knowledge about the
needs and desires of consumers, and, second, provide insights into possible soft product
development opportunities for the CEE spa sector. In this section we first describe the metatrend
in general, then, second, provide insight into the product development trends based on
the meta-trends, and, third we provide examples for the trends raised.
� Balance. Wellness is more and more (re-)discovered as an approach rather than mere a
set of activities. It is widely argued that wellness should address the lifestyle in general
and not a few days in a year only. The former approach which offered wellness (trips) as
an escape from everyday life is going to be replaced by considering a wellness holiday as
a tool to modify the course of life, to find balance – in all aspects of life. This trend also
involves taking a holistic approach to wellness, which is addressing more or all aspects of
wellness together, as related to each other, as impacting upon each other.
o Work/life balance: This is a widely discussed issue, from daily time management to
the burn-out syndrome. Wellness is seen as a help to learn managing multiple
challenges – both the do-it-yourself practices and the range of professional
consultancy. Bad Blumau, a luxury spa and hotel in Styria, Austria offers several
packages in the name of relaxation in a really de-stressing area (e.g. “Relaxation under
palm trees”, “Feel good”, ‘A woman’s job” or “Time for Two”).