WelDest Meeting in Brussels

The beautiful city of Brussels, unofficial “capital” of the EU, saw a very productive 3-day meeting by the WelDest team recently when partners from 5 countries gathered to discuss their project.

WelDest, which aims to create a development framework to be used by public bodies, destination management organizations and private companies, when developing holistic health and well-being destinations (H&WB), is now at the halfway point of this 2-year project funded by the EACEA.

Exciting news came from the Daniel Binder and Kai Illing, leading the research team. They presented preliminary results from the primary research that had been carried out with both consumers and stakeholders in the industry.

Consumer research focused on such questions as, what exactly attracts guests to Health & Well-being destinations?, which services or elements of the destination do they value the most?, and perhaps most importantly, are their needs being met?

Stakeholder research was conducted through interviews with policy makers, regional developers, hospitality managers and other influential persons involved in shaping and providing the services that make up Health and Well-being destinations. The research focused on finding determining the role that H&WB currently plays in these places and what role it will play in the future.

The WelDest team is looking forward to the upcoming focus groups to be held with those in the industry in order to discuss the results, which will be used to create the e-handbook and self-assessment tool to be used in the development of H&WB destinations. These will be piloted when the team comes together again, this time with the industry partners, in March at ITB Berlin.