WelDest team meets ESPA representatives in Brussels

A meeting between the WelDest project team and representatives of the European Spas Association took place recently in Brussels. A pleasant and lively discussion resulted in an outline of future cooperation beneficial for both parties.

The European Spa Association (ESPA) is a non-profit and non-governmental umbrella association of national associations and members from 20 European countries. ESPA’s main task is to represent the interests of its members at the European level. In addition to lobbying, it also supports its members by providing complex services including marketing activities, supporting R&D in the industry, and certifying the quality of health and spa resorts and wellness facilities across Europe with EuropeSpa med and EuropeSpa wellness quality seals.

During the meeting different aspects of cooperation were discussed. The fact that not all the WelDest partner countries are ESPA members represented an additional advantage for mutual promotion. A lack of qualified management was defined as one of the major problems of the industry and it was concluded that joint efforts could contribute to continuing professional development in the field. Further possible collaboration at the world's largest tourism trade fair, ITB Berlin, was mentioned as well. Both sides also considered cooperation in the framework of upcoming events such as the Annual ESPA Congress and the WelDest end seminar in Finland in 2014.

Promoting the health and well-being concept and encouraging the exchange of experience, best practices and know-how are just a few of the many intersecting aims and interests of ESPA and WelDest. We would like to thank ESPA for welcoming the WelDest project group at their office and believe that the meeting was just the beginning of fruitful and productive cooperation.

Call for papers HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IN TOURISM DESTINATIONS, September the 16th to 17th in Turku, Finland

The seminar will take place from September 16 to 17 at Turku University of Applied Sciences, Turku, Finland and will continue aboard the M/S Viking Grace for an optional post tour (from the evening of the 17^th until the evening of the 18^th September) through the beautiful archipelago between Finland and Sweden.

The seminar will provide an opportunity for researchers and practitioners from all over the world to exchange ideas and scientific results and discuss new and emerging directions in research and practice in the field. The seminar will be organised in conjunction with the European Union LLP funded Project WelDest (Health and Well-being in Tourism Destination) and the Faculty of Business, ITC and Life Sciences at Turku University of Applied Sciences / Degree Program in Hospitality Management. 

Thematic Area addressed:

Participants are welcome to present conceptual and empirical papers on a range of topics including:

·         Competitiveness of tourism destinations, especially Health & Well-being destinations and regions (e.g. service supply, resources and competencies as part of the competitiveness)

·         Destination management and aspects of multi-stakeholder collaboration in tourism planning and management (e.g. public-private partnerships, networks, destination management organisations, clusters and innovation systems)

·         Innovation in Tourism and health & well-being services

·         Changing consumer behaviour and future tourism demand in health & well-being services

·         Position of health & well-being tourism or health promotion in overall strategies and plans for local and regional development

·         Cross-sector analyses: synergetic inter-linkages between health & well-being tourism and related sectors, such as regional development, health sciences and creative industries

·         Quality management, safety and sustainability in health & well-being destinations

 

Please see the PDF for more details

New Well-being Service Businesses from Nature

Blue berries are natures own super food!

Natural resources and nature’s well-being effects are providing new opportunities for well-being business activities. Nature may be a part of one’s everyday life and the services one uses, but we can always develop new service concepts, which incorporate the intangible values of nature in supporting man’s well-being. Green well-being is made up of a mix of different services and technologies and environmental solutions to support these services.

The activities that make use of nature can be classified in different ways, although green health services make up most of them today. The principle idea is that these services aim to improve our well-being at different stages of life. These can also be experience-, adventure- or tourism services where people find their way spontaneously. Green care services include nature care services, which are often rehabilitation and social services offered by the public sector.

Nature is a field of great know-how in Finland and also in global markets. In the future it will be very important to be conscious of the well-being effects of product and service concepts. Developing trends and phenomenon can form the base for developing a nature based well-being business. For example, we all know that greenness in the cities promotes our health and we are even ready to pay for it.

New nature based possibilities will emerge when we can cross the lines in different fields of operation in order to find solutions. Nature-based experiences appealing to multiple senses are offered by spas and beauty salons already. Different nature schools are good examples of the creation of products, such as well-being services, from well-being effects. Also Finnish forests are full of business opportunities. In addition to the wood industry we can create products related to the picking of e.g. berries, mushrooms and also hunting game animals. As the main export, lingonberries and blueberries are utilized only up to 2-10%, and the rest is left in the forests to rot. It can be said that blueberry is a real superfood, from which products can be produced and promoted. Also the antioxidants and vitamins of the e.g. sea buckthorn and artic cloudberry are already used in fighting wrinkles. This is something we Finns should invest even more in.

Nowadays the natural resources are used primary as raw materials. However, developing the service and production processes we can create new businesses in experience economy and in well-being. Social and technical innovations create new opportunities to electrical, flexible and mobile services and even to exports.

Pia Lindroos

Lecturer, Beauty Management, TUAS

Source: Sitra 2013. Luonnonlukutaito. Luo liiketoimintaa vihreästä hyvinvoinnista. (PDF)

Fair trade show?

Every year in January, I spend a couple of days in Vienna. Not for my own pleasure, but to work at the fair “Ferienmesse Wien”. I present our holiday destination Attergau as good as I can, distributing pamphlets hoping that I inspire the fair visitor for a stay in the Attergau. Thousands of people are visiting the travel exhibition every year and it is part of our marketing strategy, hypothetical spoken... 

Looking back makes me gonna reconsider: is a fair really the right place to attract new guests for my very lovely destination? Truth is that the travel exhibition is next to Dr. Oetker muffins, wine stations and cooking shows not the main attraction any more. Most of the people are looking out for free give aways and competitions. 

Do not get me wrong: Visitors are interested in our destination and keep asking for further information, but they already used to spend a holiday in our destination, have friends there or they grew up in this place and want to gossip. It is a fact that less than 1% is making their holiday decision due to a fair visit.  So going to a fair is the right medium to keep in touch with your returning guests, but get rid of the illusion of new guests coming to your resort. At least in Vienna.

Petra Gangl

Tourismusverband Attergau

Global Spa & Wellness Summit to announce 2014 dates and venue

The Global Spa & Wellness Summit (GSWS), an international gathering that brings together leaders and visionaries to positively impact and shape the future of the global spa and wellness industries has annouced the dates for the 2014 summit.

The 2014 Summit will take place in Marrakech, Morocco, September 10-12, 2014 at the Four Seasons Resort Marrakech.

Those attending the annual GSWS are leaders and decision makers from a variety of arenas. Delegates must have senior executive titles such as CEO, president, chairman, divisional SVP, and owner. Company size, yearly sales, number of employees, and length of time in business are also taken into consideration. Special room is allotted for educators, media, and those from the not-for-profit sector. Read more

Quality Seals in the Health and Well-being Tourism Industry

Professor Kai Illing, FH Joanneum

The health and well-being tourism industry came into being in the 1990's. The Central European countries showed tremendous increases in demand and supply. Thermal spring spas, hotel spas, medical spas, and other types of spas were being built, and people decided to take wellness holidays. This kind of privately-paid pampering, relaxing, and sometimes health promoting leisure time did not develop at the same pace in all European countries. Some East European countries stuck to their more medical spa tradition based on natural remedies, with the treatments being at least partly paid by health insurance.

Booming markets often react in the same way: Some new suppliers imitate successful services, offering them at a bad cost-performance ratio. The quality erodes, clients get upset, and those who are the defenders of a best quality approach try to install instruments which help push back the late comers. Instruments of that kind include, for example, quality seals which can be obtained from various companies. If a certain set of criteria is fulfilled, a certificate is given to them.

One of the best-known quality seals comes from the European Spa Association ESPA http://europespa.eu (Quality standard for medical spas and medical wellness providers in Europe). It comprises about 1000 ambitious quality criteria which together focus on companies dealing with natural remedies. The quality seal can be obtained throughout Europe. The certification can be granted to individual companies such as medical spas, thermal baths, and other therapy centers. 

The health and well-being tourism industry in Central Europe has created a large number of quality seals; therefore hotels that want to have a quality seal have to bear in mind that very different quality seals can be obtained, some with less or more challenging criteria. Some focus on health and others on pampering, while some quality seals are only for hotels and others for clinics.

What about destinations?

Picture: ESPA

Many countries and their tourist destinations do not really specialize in certain themes such as culture, nature, or health and well-being. Health and well-being as a developing strategy on a destination level is quite new, the market is not yet driven by tough competition, and consequently not characterized by quality seals and others instruments needed in hard fought markets. Compared to other countries, Austria tried quite early to open the market up for destinations specializing in health and well-being. The "Austria well-being destination of Europe” initiative, funded by the government, started around ten years ago and showed early insight into the fact that health and well-being might be an issue for destinations too. Since then, some destinations have tried quite successfully to develop their services. Quality seals, with respect to health and well-being destinations, are not yet very common, as the market has developed slowly in comparison to the hotel wellness and spa market.

Prof. Dr. Kai T. Illing

International WelDest Focus Group in Austria

Just before the beginninf of the new year,the Austrian team organized a focus group to discuss the current research results in the WelDest project. Industry and associated partners accepted the invitiation. Prof. Kai Illing presented the main esearch results and the partners discussed its meaning.

To give you an impression of the meeting we produced a short video presentation.

The partners commented on the research results. Here you'll find extracts from some of the comments.

 Petra Gangl is not surprised about the results. As a tourism manager, she knows that it is very difficult to manage and develop infrastructure and resources without hotels which are willing to offer health-related services. 

 Kai Illing commented that there is „XUNDHEITSWELT“ in Austria, which is one of the best practice examples of a H&WB destination in Austria. This area has only one wellness-related hotel and the rest are clinics and a thermal bath.

 Petra Gangl pointed out that a regional tourism board can help provide a good basis for wellness-related hotels.

 Helmut Simi stated that it is absolutely essential that service chains are not disconnected, and that there has to be a balance between the quality of services offered and quality issues. „Does the offer on the paper correspond with the offer in reality?“ - This is one of the major questions in his work, and he can also see it in the research.

 Frank Amort stated that cross-sector cooperation of all partners in a region is essential for regional development and also keeping health promoting projects alive. „Tourism needs politics and vice versa!“ Another point in the research results which he found very interesting was that the consumers did not mention medical infrastructure as much as the stakeholders did.

 Karin Gebhardt did not find a conflict between quality and price level. For her there exists a great chance for all participants of the market do the best job to guarantee best quality for affordable prices. It is her experience that guests want to have cognitive stimulation during their stay, from things like cultural offerings or sports activities. Petra Gangl commented that the guest in Attergau also wants to have this cognitive stimulation but only if they stay for a longer period of time; more than one week.

 Christian Husak emphasized the importance of regional creation of added value. For him networking is one of the central topics. Becoming a H&WB destination can lead to an USP if it is done right.

After the session, the Austrian team with Kai Illing and Daniel Binder presented the WelDest framework model, which lead to some interesting discussion about its aims and topics.

The strengths of the current model are that it is very sophisticaed, and has a great chance to become an instrument for developing Health and Well-being destination. But we should also consider more health-related aspects and use easier and better understandable language.

Best regards from Austria,
Daniel Binder