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

they have reached the state of consolidation or even stagnation in the Tourism Area Life
Cycle. Health destinations try to re-position their product in order to attract new groups of
visitors. However, they are often insecure about the real needs and expectations of their guest.
Primarily, the study was supposed to define the real interests and needs of the potential health
traveller. In recent years, the broader development of Medical Wellness products seemed to
be a promising innovation in the Germany health tourism market. Secondly, the aim of the
survey was to evaluate the real choice of health tourists as well as their satisfaction with the
offers in health destinations, using the case study of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Last,
the definition of target groups was supposed to help to develop further specific offers for
health promotion and prevention.
Methods
Two methods were combined for this research project to differentiate between the
expectations of the guests and the real use of the offers in the health destinations: first, a
German wide telephone survey among the population age fourteen and above was carried out.
The results lead to a deeper insight into the wishes and expectations of the potential German
health traveller and assessed possible target groups. Secondly, a face-to-face survey in
relevant destinations for health tourism in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania generated data of
actual health travellers and their expectations towards the destination and their offers. This
combination of similar questionnaires, as far as appropriate, allowed a comparison between
the stated expectations of possible guest groups from the telephone survey and the real
situation in the health destinations.
Telephone survey
In a first step of the survey on German health tourism, the underlying reasons when deciding
for a health vacation were studied. With the help of a nationwide representative telephone
survey, Germans were questioned about their interest in health holidays. The focus was taken
on the privately paid visits, leaving out the far developed market of cure treatments paid by
the health insurances.
The questionnaire was developed at the University of Greifswald in cooperation with the
University of Rostock. The scientific group consisted of one specialist in tourism and two
medical practitioners, one being specialised in Community Medicine, the other in
Complementary Medicine. The survey was taken out through May and June 2008. Chosen
from a random sample, 6,325 calls were conducted, receiving 1,063 full interviews (response
rate: 17%). The sample was weighted according to the criteria “size of household”, “gender”,
“age” and “residence / Bundesland” (German federal state).
At the beginning of the interview, the concept of “health holiday” was defined as a holiday in
which activities and services are used in order to influence the personal state of health in a
positive manner. The questionnaire consisted of 40 questions and was fully standardised.
Most of the questions were closed, with a fixed set of possible answers, though six questions
had hybrid possible answers, giving the respondent the possibility of free answers.
Guests questionnaire
In a second step, the customer satisfaction was analyzed. Between June and November 2008,
the data was generated by face-to-face interviews in numerous health destinations in
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania such as hotels, rehabilitation clinics, thermal baths or
therapy centres. 2,222 contacts were made, resulting in 904 full interviews (response rate: