Hot springs: leisure, health and tourism

Keywords: Hot springs, Leisure, Health, Medical Tourism,
Session Type: Virtual Guided Poster Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 8

Abstract

This study focuses on hydrotherapy or the practice of water as a therapeutic element. Thermal spas and hydrotherapy were used anciently by the Arabs, Greeks, and Romans who established thermal spas for health and relaxation. Tourism scholarship has begun to focus much more on human well-being in recent years; part of this trend has included increased research on health spas. Spas and physiotherapy have not developed in concert. When spas were popular, physiotherapy had not yet been developed, and when physiotherapy developed, spas were in decline. This, coupled with the growing demand for physiotherapists in the healthcare industry, meant that physiotherapists did not consider spas to be a professional service, and spas did not generally employ physiotherapists. Nonetheless, the two areas had similar goals. For humankind, water provides the foundations of healthy therapies. Since its ancient popularity, hydrotherapy has suffered considerable neglect, but it is now resurfacing as leisure, health, and tourism pursuit. Destinations that possess thermal qualities seek ways to diversify their tourism product base, and a reorientation towards therapeutic treatments, health tourism, and so-called ‘beauty tourism’ is examined as possible measures. This includes perspectives on the creation of a complementary offer between health tourism, leisure, and the integration of protected natural spaces into the product of ‘ecological’ thermal tourism. Globally, health tourism is recognized as one of the oldest forms of tourism, practiced since ancient times and today a major subtype of medical tourism today that is growing tremendously, but many developing countries lag behind despite their potential.