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

A Comparative Analysis of Spa Tourism in Japan and Hungary
Tamara Rátz
Kodolányi János University of Applied Sciences, Hungary
tratz@uranos.kodolanyi.hu
Abstract
Health is an ancient travel and leisure motivation that has inspired people all around the world
to leave their permanent residence and visit far-away destinations for thousand of years.
Although globalisation trends in supply and demand also affect spa and health tourism which
leads to the introduction of novel and exotic treatments and services, health-oriented leisure
and tourism behaviour is still considerably culture-dependent on the one hand, and
economically and environmentally influenced on the other hand. As a consequence of its
richness in geothermal resources and its unique culture, Japan has been able develop a
distinctive path in spa tourism development and wellness. Hungary is also in rich thermal
springs and spa culture also developed for centuries, but the leisure and tourist supply and
demand are highly different in the two countries, due to each countries’ unique cultural,
economic and natural background.
The paper analyses the similarities and differences between health-oriented leisure mobility
and the development characteristics of health tourism in Japan and Hungary, and assesses the
cultural and environmental factors that have shaped development in each country. Based on
secondary literature research, personal observation at Japanese hot springs destinations and
customer attitude analysis based on a mail survey carried out among 150 international visitors
to Japanese spas, questions to be discussed also include health tourism marketing issues, the
range and characteristics of facilities, as well as perceptions and attitudes of foreign and
domestic visitors. In addition, the paper aims to identify the specific factors in Japanese and
Hungarian spa tourism that may prove to be attractive for certain visitor segments in the
respective countries.
Introduction
Japan and Hungary are both listed among the world’s five richest countries in terms of
thermal and medicinal springs. However, this richness is explained by different natural
factors: in Japan it is the widespread volcanic activity that makes the islands of the country
one of the world’s greatest hot spring (onsen) destinations (Kojima and Kawamura 2006),
while Hungary’s favourable position is due to the Carpathian basin’s particularly high
geothermal gradient (Boldizsár 1973).
This paper is based on field research in Japan in spring 2008 supported by the Japan
Foundation Fellowship for Intellectual Research. The major objective of the research project
was to explore and understand the social, economic and environmental aspects of healthoriented
leisure mobility in Japan. The project had a theoretical as well as a practical
approach. Despite the growing significance of Japan both as a country of origin and a
destination of tourism, relatively little research has been undertaken to explore the sociocultural
and economic aspects of Japanese tourists’ behaviour, although interest in the subject
has been growing recently (e.g. Graburn 1983, Creighton 1997, Baláz and Mitsutake 1998,
Hendry and Raveri 2002, Guichard-Anguis and Moon 2009).