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

Table 5 The experienced spa services (the number of mentions). Source: own
research, 2009
Conclusions
Presently the examined spa (as well, as, most of Hungarian and CEE spas) incorporate only
few of the metatrends and trends, identified above, in their wellness offers. A key
characteristic of these spas is that they concentrate on the physical aspects of wellness such as
equipment variety, water quality and interior design. The underlying spiritual aspects and the
resulting sophistication of the soft service components are not addressed yet. Some of these
are missing completely: there are few gender-specific services and where such exists, these
are offered to women only. Similarly ‘balance” in its wider meaning is rarely discussed. The
most existent trend is that of serving children – these offers however address fun and
experiences, but not health.
However this does not seems to be a disadvantage on current markets as actual visitors do
require trend-related offers. Guests would require more services related to the food and
beverages component of the spas (to have healthier or green food, child friendly menus, good
cafeteria and good selection of wines). Even though it has not been formulated in this way, it
is easy to identify the trend of “body in balance” behind these wishes. As a second group of
missing services, the visitors mentioned the need for more specialized wellness services such
as different massages offers, more sport and fitness services for the younger generation too –
which we linked to the “work/life balance” trend. Families with young children would
require baby services such as babysitting or kindergarten in the spa, playground, according to
“children’s spa”. As contrasted to the few such ideas, the majority of the guests mentioned
different infrastructure items, as more pools, more resting beds with tables – these can’t be
classified to trends.
The research showed that visiting a spa became a trendy way of spending leisure time for lots
of people. The visitors experienced the spa in general (the thermal basin and wellness pools),
with a few wellness services. More complex and multi-layered wellness experiences are rarely
sought of.
Based on the above findings we can draw the conclusion that the development of wellness in
Hungary is mostly media-driven. Neither spa services nor the visitors reflect on the
metatrends and trends identified in life-style media. Thus media coverage is not based on
existing offers but rather envisages the – possible – future of wellness in Central Europe. It