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

4. Travel benefit perception reflects the expectation and intention of travel behavior. The
participation interests in extended wellness activities reflect higher intention in involving in
wellness services than the perceived importance of the hotel services. Iso-Ahola (1980)
mentioned of active and passive leisure participation. The active and passive travel benefits
seekers maybe the best indicators of the active and passive wellness travel participation for
the elders.
The distinct characteristics and wellness travel interests of the active and passive benefits
seekers suggest that the benefit segmentation of elder travelers is a useful strategy in
developing wellness market; thus, the operators and the marketers of wellness tourism have to
understand the characteristics of these two types of benefits seekers and their preferred
benefits. When the active benefits seekers are more interested in participation in extended
wellness activities, it is reasonable to infer that to increase the perception or the awareness of
travel benefits of the elders might broaden the market.
5. The hotel operators and marketers are recommended to promote different benefits for
different benefits seekers. To the active seekers, the “ nature appreciation ”, “cultural
understanding”, and “escape and relaxation” are perceived as the most important benefits. On
the other hand, the passive benefits seekers stressed more on the benefits of “family gathering
and relationship enhancement”, “appreciation of the nature”, and “social interaction”. The
marketers can match their marketing strategies with the mentioned benefits to further
motivate different benefits seekers in participating of more health related activities in the
wellness tourism. Especially, as the potential of active benefits seekers in wellness market is
higher, the hotel operators and marketers can promote the market by matching the right
benefits and offer more in-depth, diverse, and learning activities to satisfy their needs.
Therefore, it is necessary for the professionals in wellness market to understand the intention,
demands, and attitudes of the older people and incorporate the wellness knowledge into their
program design and implementation, and be capable of facilitating the elders’ awareness of
wellness travel benefits.
6. To better prepare the market, more detailed information need to be obtained regarding the
specific needs, preferences, and the ways of engaging wellness activities in travel of the
passive and active benefits seekers. Furthermore, the stability of the typology of active
benefits seekers vs. passive benefits should be further tested. As the two-types of benefits
seekers are confirmed within the elder travelers in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, more empirical studies
are needed to verify the two types, as well as its relationship with other wellness related
attitudes and behavior in the future.
References
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Ardell, D. B. (1977). High level wellness: An alternative to doctors, drugs, and disease.
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Ardell, D. B. (1986). High level wellness: An alternative to doctors, drugs, and disease (2 nd
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Arimond, G. & Elffessi, A. (2001). A clustering method for categorical data in tourism market
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Benson, H. & Stuart, E. M. (1992). The wellness book. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Chen & Wu (2005). A study on overseas travel motivations and market segmentation for the
seniors. Tourism Management Research, 1, 1-16.