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

Austrian and German travellers seem to be interested more than average in wellness trips
(67%). This segment appears to appeal more female travellers with 67% share which is a
regular phenomenon in the wellness travel market. No age differences between these two
segments turned out. On average, 37% are at the age below 30 years, 40% in the bracket of 30
to 49 years and 23% belong to the cohort of 50+.
The accommodation chosen for the current trip can be taken as a proxy for preference
differentials in general: 57% of wellness travellers chose hotels whereas the share among nonwellness
travellers is only 39%. The non-wellness segment prefers more private
accommodation, campsites, and non-paid forms (secondary homes, stays with friends or
relatives). A good majority (60%) of the wellness inclined segment can be found in 4-star
hotels compared to 53% in the non-wellness group. The following Table 2 visualizes the
different main purposes of travel as stated by the different respondent groups. Overall, there
are not too many differences except for culture, culinary and curative stays driving the
wellness segment significantly more. The apparent stronger emphasis on recreational
purposes for the wellness segment is not sufficient to be significant.
After having inspected the socio-demographic background and basic travel profile of the two
travel segments the focus changes to investigate the destination experiences and near-future
plans together with the association of destinations with wellness trips. Table 3 gives insights
into these three perspectives. Whereas some differences in prior destination experience are
mainly due to the sample structure (Austria, Germany, Italy) the wellness segment appears to
represent the more travel active travel population. This materializes in the higher rate of past
visits to Hungary and Slovakia and particularly for the Asian destinations: Thailand,
Maldives, China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.
Another perspective is covered by the travel plans looking 5 years ahead. Similarly, some
destinations are favoured through domestic tourism. Higher intentions are revealed by the
wellness segment for Croatia and Hungary and for all Asian countries presented in the
questionnaire. Among the countries most preferred in this region are Maldives (43%),
Thailand (38%), and Malaysia (33%). The differentials between non-wellness and wellness
travellers, though, can be seen as a first sign of competitive advantage for the latter market
segment. The relative difference is highest for Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia (almost
double) followed by Malaysia, India and Vietnam.