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

There is a lot of confusion in the use of the terms spa and wellness and it often misleads
visitors due to the lack of common concepts. There is a similar confusion concerning spa and
wellness hotels. Addition of the words spa or wellness spa to a hotel name may not always
mean that the hotel really measures up to that. This has made categorisation criteria for spa
hotels very necessary and they have also been developed by different organisations of many
countries. The main purpose of categorisation systems is to organise the market and define the
quality standards of services in order to make the service reliable to the client. How can
quality best be communicated?
The more common European quality systems for spa and wellness hotels
This paper covers more thoroughly only a few main principles and main documents of quality
criteria of European spa and wellness hotels, which have also been taken as a basis for the
development of the categorisation system of Estonian spa hotels. There are, however, many
more of such quality systems both in Europe and on the global scale.
The award of the EUROPESPA-med seal of approval means that the holder meets the
exacting standards of ESPA in terms of general therapy infrastructure, hygiene and safety
(Certified exclellence…; International seal of approval...). The EUROPESPA seal of approval
is designed for spas and health resorts in the classical health care segment as well as centres
specialising in medical wellness whose services include treatment and cures. Health resorts
certified by the European Spas Association are listed in the EUROPESPA directory, which
lists the leading spas in Europe meeting the criteria of the ESPA (EUROPESPA.
International...).
The EUROPESPA wellness quality seal (EUROPESPA wellness...) is specially developed by
the European Spas Association (ESPA). The award of the EUROPESPA wellness quality seal
means the holder meets the exacting standards of ESPA in terms of wellness infrastructure,
wellness service, hygiene and safety. The customer knows that EUROPESPA wellness
certified hotels are fulfilling the international quality standards of the European Spa
Association. The set of criteria contains about 350 audit questions checked through an
announced audit on site and approx. 600 testing points is an anonymous check (mystery test)
made by a professional test person.
The European Audit Institute Wellness & Spa provides certification of wellness hotels in four
categories: for hotels with special wellness and spa offers and wellness ambience; for hotels
with special medical offers and concepts and wellness ambience; for golf hotels with special
wellness and golf concepts and wellness ambience, and for hotels with special thalassic and
spa concepts with wellness. In every category there are 3 grade levels awarded: leading,
premium and quality. The quality certificate of the European Audit Institute Wellness & SPA
is an award not only for the wellness and spa area but for the entire hotel with all its facilities
(Wellness Europe Certificates…).
BISA, the British International Spa Association, has become one of the leading representative
bodies for spa accreditation worldwide. Through its British International Spa Accreditation
scheme, BISA seeks to establish consumer confidence through quality standards in the spa
and health resort industries (BISA. International…; BISA. Accreditation…). First established
in 1998, the Waves of Excellence is an accreditation system developed to indicate that a spa is
offering products and services that the consumer can enjoy with confidence.