Health and wellness tourism

Scroll down for posts tagged with ‘Health and well­ness tourism’.

There is a grow­ing trend of people using travel & tour­ism to improve their health and well-being. This trend is being driv­en by a num­ber of factors, including:

  • The increas­ing aware­ness of the import­ance of health and well-being;
  • The rising cost of health­care; and
  • The desire for people to exper­i­ence new things and cultures

Travel & tour­ism is respond­ing by offer­ing a wide range of health and well­ness-related products and services. 

These include:

  • Med­ic­al tour­ism: This is the prac­tice of trav­el­ling to anoth­er coun­try to receive med­ic­al care because it is cheap­er and/or more advanced than at home.
  • Well­ness tour­ism: This is the prac­tice of trav­el­ling to a des­tin­a­tion for the pur­pose of improv­ing one’s phys­ic­al and men­tal health and well-being. Well­ness tour­ism activ­it­ies can include yoga, med­it­a­tion, and spa treat­ments, as well as more phys­ic­al activ­it­ies, such as hik­ing, cyc­ling, kayak­ing, or running.

The tour­ism industry is well-posi­tioned to cap­it­al­ise on the grow­ing trend of health and well­ness tour­ism. The industry has a glob­al reach, and it can offer a wide range of products and ser­vices that meet the needs of dif­fer­ent travellers.

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Travel, stories, education: The keys to happiness?

April 15, 2021

Story time with Mama; a framework for happiness? Photo by Liana Mikah (CC0) via Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/Puhj02KOHrc

Sus­tain­able tour­ism expert and edu­cat­or Ivana Dam­njan­ović is pas­sion­ate about travel, stor­ies, and edu­ca­tion; so much so that she thinks that they could be the source of, frame­work for, and means to hap­pi­ness. It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. Travel & tour­ism has long been con­sidered a magic box that brings cer­tain profit. No mat­ter how […]

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Living the good life: Can tourism help save a host community from itself?

April 13, 2021
One Comment

Barefoot Bar: Living the good life in the Cook Islands. Image supplied by Ani Thompson

Much has been made about how travel & tour­ism exploits host com­munit­ies. But can our industry pro­act­ively improve loc­als’ health and well-being? Ani Thompson thinks so. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, the hoteli­er shares how she has lever­aged the resources avail­able to her to help tackle the scourge of non­com­mu­nic­able dis­eases in her nat­ive Cook […]

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The PR challenge of opening Thailand safely to inbound travel & tourism

March 11, 2021
3 Comments

Smiling eyes of a Bangkok taxi driver. Image by David Gillbanks

The COV­­ID-induced travel & tour­ism depres­sion has hit Thai­l­and hard. Ranked eighth in terms of inter­na­tion­al vis­it­or arrivals in 2019, Thai­l­and is the poorest of the des­tin­a­tions in the top 10. It is no won­der then that an industry-led pub­lic rela­tions cam­paign advoc­at­ing for a safe reopen­ing has emerged: #OpenThai­l­and­Safely. Head­ing up its mes­saging and […]

Read More The PR challenge of opening Thailand safely to inbound travel & tourism

Why build well-being into destination resilience and tourism recovery?


Why build well being into destination resilience and recovery

Much has been writ­ten about includ­ing host com­munit­ies in des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment and tour­ism devel­op­ment decision-mak­ing, but how would one go about meas­ur­ing con­tent­ment, well-being, or even hap­pi­ness, on an ongo­ing basis? In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Paul Rogers of “GT” Insight Part­ner Plan­et Hap­pi­ness presents a solu­tion.  Pri­or to the onset of the COVID-19 global […]

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Mahouts matter: The Elephant Conservation Center’s essential workers


ECC's male elephant mahout team. Image by Anabel Lopez-Perez.

Intro­duct­ory note by Hol­lis Bur­b­ank-Ham­­marlund, Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al: The concept of ‘essen­tial work­ers’ has been front and centre since the COVID-19 vir­us struck our world earli­er this year. Doc­tors, nurses, para­med­ics, as well as teach­ers, gro­cery store work­ers, trans­port­a­tion staff and so many oth­ers have been work­ing tire­lessly to sup­port essen­tial human needs […]

Read More Mahouts matter: The Elephant Conservation Center’s essential workers

A community-based tourism dilemma: COVID’s ‘new normal’ vs ‘back to normal’

November 10, 2020

Community-based tourism Myanmar. "CBT. Visit Myanmar. Visit Dawei."

Skål recently recog­nised the Inter­na­tion­al Trade Centre’s Myan­mar Inclus­ive Tour­ism Pro­ject with a sus­tain­able tour­ism award. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Pro­ject con­sult­ant Peter Richards describes the pre-pan­­dem­ic prom­ise of new com­munity-based tour­ism products, their chal­lenges now, and how com­munit­ies are hand­ling COVID safety con­cerns as they con­sider reopen­ing.  At the start of 2020, the […]

Read More A community-based tourism dilemma: COVID’s ‘new normal’ vs ‘back to normal’