Health and Wellness Tourism as Source of Happiness and Quality of Life

Abstract

Health and wellness tourism as always been in the tourism history of Portugal and Hungary. Nowadays, it still figures as one of the strategic products for development of tourism in both countries. The constant and solid growth of this type of tourism is due to the large range of modern life circumstances and constraints. The stress levels and the working hours and the improvement of the life hope, are factors that converge and obey to a bigger concern with the quality of life levels and also the sense of happiness. Consequently, Health and Wellness activities, specifically the ones that are rewarded with the therapeutic qualities and characteristics of thermal waters, are particularly valorised by different segments of demand. The literature review allowed the comprehension of the concepts of quality of life and happiness in the tourism context and reflected the reality and the potential nature of health and wellness tourism as a global touristic product for the contemporary world, mainly in the developed societies. The purpose of the present paper is to analyse the relation of health and wellness tourism and the improvement of quality of life and the levels of happiness, in a comparative study between Portuguese and Hungarian realities. The analysis was made by the supply side. The empirical study was developed in a four months period and the empirical data were collected through the administration of a questionnaire as a data collection tool in some of the most important Thermal Baths, Hot Springs and SPAs of those countries. The study sample is made up of 753 Portuguese and Hungary users of those SPAs and thermal baths. The results of the empirical research are analysed and both cases are compared. The obtained conclusions are presented and the implications to the development of health and wellness tourism are demonstrated in a marketing and consumer behaviour perspective.