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

The DOSTWELL Wellness Quality Seal is a quality system for wellness-oriented enterprises.
DOSTWELL is an international project co-financed by the European Union – Interreg IIIC
programme. 8 partners from 7 European countries joined together to define wellness on EU
level, to develop a wellness cluster model, set up wellness quality standards, define a wellness
product and promote the concept of wellness water based tourism, as water is the common
element to all regions taking part in this project (DOSTWELL – Quality in Wellness). The
wellness quality seal is oriented towards modern management approach, and spirit of
sustainability also leaves room for and encourages an organisation to keep and further develop
their individuality and distinctive characteristics.
European Wellness & Health Standard (EuWHS) was elaborated by international experts and
specialists of the European Economic Chamber of Trade, Commerce and Industry EEIG
(Brussels) to avoid unfair competition, to protect consumer interests and to contribute to an
improvement of the quality in this specific field. Wellness and health centres the quality of
which complies with the quality criteria as stipulated by the European Wellness and Health
Standard can be certified as quality enterprises (European Wellness and…)
The Fáilte Ireland Spa and Wellness Categorisation Programme sets the criteria for the
categorisation of Ireland’s spas and wellness retreats (The Fáilte Ireland Spa…). Speaking at
the awards ceremony, Tony Lenehan, Fáilte Ireland‘s Head of Industry Standards & Quality
emphasized: “This new categorisation system creates a win-win situation for both operators
and customers. It will help operators to better advertise their services and will aid both
existing and new customers to better understand the variety of spa and wellness offerings
available, make informed choices and find the products that best suit their needs. ”
In each Alpine region country today, there are nationally developed wellness criteria and
initiatives, e.g. Wellfeeling (Switzerland), Well-Vital (Bavaria), Belvita (South Tyrol) and
Best Health Austria (Austria). For a participant of the development and marketing initiative
“Alpine Wellness”, apart from the general wellness basis quality criteria, the minimum
criteria in the area of “alpine character” are obligatory. Furthermore, every alpine wellness
company can distinguish itself by fulfilling additional criteria in the areas of “alpine
indulgence”, “alpine fitness” and “alpine medical wellness”. Alpine Wellness International
was in 2003. (Alpine Wellness…)
The quality concepts and criteria of spa and wellness hotels of also other continents were
examined during the preparation of this study. The following is a brief review of such
concepts. In October 2008, the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry appointed CaseTrust
as the accreditation body for the spa and wellness industry (Casetrust for spa and ...). In 2004
the Thailand Ministry of Public Health adopted the Thai spa standards (Ministerial
Announcement...), which defined health and beauty service enterprises, standards for service,
service providers, and principles and methods for inspecting and certifying standards for
health and beauty service enterprises. The basic principles of the quality systems and quality
criteria described in this paper served as an important basis and guidance for the development
of the categorisation system of Estonian spa hotels.
Development of Health, Spa and Wellness tourism in Estonia
National tourism policy and tourism development activities are implemented by the Estonian
Tourist Board, which is a subunit of the Enterprise Estonia Foundation and belongs to the
administrative sphere of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communication. In 2006, the
Estonian Parliament adopted the National Development Plan for Tourism for 2007–2013