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

Australian Wellness Tourism Providers: Definition, Typology and Current
Status
Cornelia Voigt
School of Management, University of South Australia
City West Campus, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Cornelia.Voigt@unisa.edu.au
And
Jennifer Laing
Tourism Research Unit, Monash University
Berwick Campus, PO Box 1071, Narre Warren, VIC 3805, Australia
Jennifer.Laing@BusEco.monash.edu.au
Abstract
This paper provides insight into the current structure of Australian wellness tourism providers,
which is based on a national scoping study investigating supply and demand of Australian
health tourism. A new wellness tourism provider typology consisting of three core categories
is suggested: (1) Beauty Spa Hotel/Resorts, (2) Lifestyle Resorts, and (3) Spiritual Retreats. In
order to build a picture of the structure of the industry, the main body of this paper provides
examples of wellness tourism operators that illustrate each of the wellness tourism provider
categories. This is followed by a discussion of the results of a survey sent to all Australian
wellness tourism providers, demonstrating the nature of services offered by the three core
types of wellness tourism operators. This research contributes to the understanding of
different approaches to developing and delivering wellness tourism, not only within one
country but also in comparison to how wellness tourism is supplied in other countries.
Key words: wellness tourism, Australia, typology, spa, retreat, resort
Introduction
Although there is some evidence that Australia’s Indigenous people have used geothermal
waters for spiritual and medicinal purposes for thousands of years (Lambert, 2008; White,
2009), the Australian wellness and health tourism industry is very young when compared to
its development in Europe and some Asian countries. One reason for this might be that – with
the notable exception of the mineral and hot springs in the Daylesford/Hepburn Springs
region and the Mornington Peninsula in the state of Victoria – Australia does not possess
large deposits of mineral and hot springs that have been the central focus for Europe’s healthseeking
travellers for centuries. Researchers have noted that the term ‘spa’ has distinctly
different meanings in English-speaking countries and continental Europe (Puczkó &
Bacharov, 2006; Williams et al., 1996). Accordingly, the Australian wellness and spa tourism
industry is focused on health promotion and prevention rather than on medical cure or
rehabilitation as traditionally found in European countries (Bennett, King, & Milner, 2004;
Puczkó & Bacharov, 2006; Smith & Puczkó, 2008).
Possibly fuelled by broad socio-cultural and economic factors such as escalating health costs,
an increasing scepticism of orthodox biomedicine on one hand and a growing acceptance of
alternative healing practices on the other, and a rise in the health consciousness of consumers
(Pollock & Williams, 2000; Weiermair & Mathies, 2004) as well as a need to downsize and