Thailand - Making the most of wellness tourism

Spiritual & holistic services are set to be the most important assets and demand components of the health and wellness sector in the Far East and South East Asia by 2020, according to a research report distributed at the World Travel Market 2011 here last week.

Published by Wellness Tourism Worldwide (WTW), a newly formed alliance of wellness and tourism related businesses, organisations and institutions, the research also forecasts that private health insurance will play a more important role in providing policies that cover wellness travel.

Entitled The 4WR: Wellness for Whom, Where and What? Wellness Travel 2020, the report was prepared by Xellum Ltd (Hungary) with the support from Global Spa and Wellness (USA) and the cooperation of Hungarian National Tourism Plc.

It was an attempt to better segment the various emerging products and services globally and break them down into areas of specialisation by geographical region. It also seeks to identify the biggest opportunities in wellness tourism over the next 10 years by drawing up input from 140 experts representing stakeholders from wellness, tourism, spa and healthcare industries in over 50 countries.

The bottom-line objective is to help developers, managers and policymakers build on or develop individual competitive advantages and avoid costly common mistakes.

It says that although wellness tourism is, and expected to remain, one of the fastest-growing forms of international and domestic tourism, there is one major risk: the globalisation of standardised and uniform products and services. Today, the report says that the most popular wellness tourism services are: beauty treatments (89% of the respondents named it as popular or very popular); sport & fitness services (89%), leisure and recreational spas (85%), and spa & wellness resorts (83%). Yoga and meditation (60%) are also very well established and popular.

However, the report found that each individual region also had key products and services that were considered important assets for tourism. For example:

- In Africa, the natural environment and traditional spirituality received relatively high importance.

- In Southeast Asia, spirituality achieved the highest importance and the highest absolute rating among all the regions, while medical treatments and services as well as alternative treatments were also important. In the Far East, spirituality and complementary and alternative methods were rated as important assets.

- In Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific, the natural environment and traditional and alternative treatments are important assets, whereas medical services/treatments have the lowest ratings.

- In Europe, nature and the environment are important in every region, particularly in Southern Europe. Natural healing assets are significant in Western and Central-Eastern Europe. Both non-invasive medical treatments (e.g. rehabilitation) and surgical services are important in every sub-region (except Southern Europe).

- In the Middle-East, natural healing as well as traditional services seem to be important, as are medical services.

- In North America both invasive and non-invasive medical services are considered to be the most important assets. Alternative treatments and the natural environment also enjoyed high ratings, and spiritual treatments appeared to be more important than in Europe.

- In Central and South America, the natural environment, the traditional and complementary treatments were important, and medical assets got low ratings in both regions (those results highlight the significant differences in terms of the availability of medical services for tourism purposes and for local needs).

Says the report, "The currently most important assets are very different from region to region, which could serve as sound foundation for international wellness tourism, if they were utilised in a competitive fashion since international wellness travellers typically look for special qualities and local experiences."

Comparing current data with future trends, the supply of wellness tourism services will change significantly in the coming 10 years. According to the report, traditional, lifestyle defining approaches (e.g. yoga) will become widely accepted in wellness tourism services in North America and Northern Europe.

Wellness hotels and resort spas are already are and forecasted to remain the most popular wellness tourism product in several important continents and regions by 2020 including Africa, South America, Central America, Australia and New Zealand.

Spirituality remains dominant in Asia. In Central and Eastern Europe, therapeutic services and treatments are mainly based on the availability of natural assets (e.g. thermal waters) and will stay or become the most important.

Products that will be available globally and will lose their differentiating qualities by 2020 include beauty treatments, massage of any kind, sauna of any kind, day-spas, and some spiritual practices (e.g. yoga or meditation).

It says there is a clear interest in the market to see new services and products that can differ from standardized services. The wellness tourism industry needs to better inform the market about the available assets and products, since many new products are not known and concepts are not yet generally accepted.

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