Overview

The Routledge Handbook of Health Tourism provides a comprehensive and cutting-edge overview of the philosophical, conceptual and managerial issues in the field of health tourism with contributions from more than 30 expert academics and practitioners from around the world. Terms that are used frequently when defining health tourism, such as wellbeing, wellness, holistic, medical and spiritual, are analysed and explored, as is the role that health and health tourism play in quality-of-life enhancement, wellbeing, life satisfaction and happiness. An overview is provided of health tourism facilities such as thermal waters, spas, retreats and wellness hotels and the various challenges inherent in managing these profitably and sustainably. Typologies are given not only of subsectors of health tourism and related activities but also of destinations, such as natural landscapes, historic townscapes or individual resources or attractions around which whole infrastructures have been developed. Attention is paid to some of the lifestyle changes that are taking place in societies which influence consumer behaviour, motivations and demand for health tourism, including government policies, regulations and ethical considerations. This significant volume offers the reader a comprehensive synthesis of this field, conveying the latest thinking and research. The text is international in focus, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and areas of study and will be an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in health tourism.

Full Product Details

Author:   Melanie Kay Smith ,  László Puczkó
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Dimensions:   Width: 17.40cm , Height: 3.30cm , Length: 24.60cm
Weight:   0.980kg
ISBN:  

9781138909830

ISBN 10:   1138909831
Pages:   486
Publication Date:   28 November 2016
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

List of figures List of tables List of contributors Preface 1 Introduction Melanie Kay Smith and László Puczkó PART I History and trends 2 History of spa tourism: spirituality, rejuvenation and socialisation Warwick Frost and Jennifer Laing 3 An overview of lifestyle trends and their impacts on health tourism Melanie Kay Smith 4 Leading taste: the influence of trendsetters on health tourism Jennifer Laing and Warwick Frost PART II Happiness, wellbeing and quality of life 5 Between tourists: tourism and happiness Ondrej Mitas, Jeroen Nawijn and Barbara Jongsma 6 The impact of tourist activities on tourists’ subjective wellbeing Muzaffer Uysal, M. Joseph Sirgy, Eunju Woo and Hyelin (Lina) Kim 7 Finding flow during a vacation: using optimal experiences to improve health John K. Coffey and Mihály Csikszentmihályi PART III Health, tourism and society 8 Healthy tourism Robyn Bushell 9 Social tourism and health Anya Diekmann and Scott McCabe 10 A life-course analysis of older tourists and their changing patterns of holiday behaviour Gareth Shaw, Isabelle Cloquet, Paul Cleave, Andrzej Tucki, Maria João F. Custódio and Alessandra Theuma PART IV Holistic wellbeing 11 The psychology of spa: the science of ‘holistic’ wellbeing Jeremy McCarthy 12 Journeys of the self: the need to retreat Catherine Kelly and Melanie Kay Smith 13 Community as holistic healer on health holiday retreats: the case of Skyros Dina Glouberman and Josée-Ann Cloutier 14 Yoga, transformation and tourism 168 Melanie Kay Smith and Ivett Sziva PART V Medical tourism: ethics, regulation and policy 15 The ethics of medical travel David Reisman 16 The environmental externalities of medical and health tourism: implications for global public health Colin Michael Hall 17 Legal and ethical issues of cross-border reproductive care from an EU perspective Markus Frischhut 18 The need to professionalise aestheticians Kathryn Gallagher and Marion Joppe PART VI Medical tourism: products and services 19 Choosing the good hospital: helping medical tourists make informed decisions Sharon Kleefield 20 Medical hotels: an approach to sustainable health in the leisure industry Kai Illing 21 A Disney strategic approach to patient/guest services in Hospitality Bridging Healthcare (H2H) and medical tourism and wellness Frederick J. DeMicco 22 Balneology and health tourism Melanie Kay Smith and László Puczkó PART VII Health destination development and management 23 Enhancing the competitiveness of a wellness tourism destination by coordinating the multiple actor collaboration Telle Tuominen, Susanna Saari and Daniel Binder 24 Cross-border health tourism collaborations: opportunities and challenges Henna Konu and Melanie Kay Smith 25 Destination and product development rested on evidence-based health tourism Georg Christian Steckenbauer, Stephanie Tischler, Arnulf Hartl and Christina Pichler 26 Developing a wellness destination: a case study of the Peak District Sarah Rawlinson and Peter Wiltshier PART VIII Therapeutic and healing landscapes 27 ‘Places of power’: can individual ‘sacred space’ help regain orientation in a confusing world? A discussion of mental health tourism to extraordinary natural sites in the context of Antonovsky’s ‘sense of coherence’ and Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ Harald A. Friedl 28 Rhythmic revitalisations: attuning to nature for health and wellbeing Edward H. Huijbens 29 Relationships between emotion regulation seeking, programme satisfaction, attention restoration and life satisfaction: healing programme participants Timothy J. Lee and Jinok Susanna Kim 30 Health tourism and health promotion at the coast Peter Kruizinga PART IX Nature, health and tourism 31 Rural wellbeing tourism destinations – demand side viewpoint Juho Pesonen and Anja Tuohino 32 Protected natural areas as innovative health tourism destinations Sonia Ferrari and Monica Gilli 33 Understanding the links between wellness and Indigenous tourism in western Canada: critical sites of cultural exchange John S. Hull and Courtney W. Mason 34 Conclusion Melanie Kay Smith and László Puczkó Index

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Author Information

Melanie Kay Smith is Associate Professor at Budapest Metropolitan University in the School of Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality. She is the co-author of the book Health, Tourism and Hospitality: Spas, Wellness and Medical Travel (Routledge, 2013) with Dr László Puczkó and has worked for over ten years on health tourism, including research, lecturing and the publication of several journal articles and book chapters. She has been an invited keynote speaker at many international conferences, and has undertaken health tourism consultancy work in a range of countries, including for the European Travel Commission and United Nations World Tourism Organization. She has most recently been working on Baltic health tourism and Balkan wellbeing concepts, as well as a European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) project on tourism, wellbeing and ecosystem services. Her most recent teaching and research focus on evidence-based healing resources and therapies. László Puczkó is the Director of Industry Intelligence at Resources for Leisure Assets and the Head of Tourism and Leisure Knowledge Centre at the Budapest Metropolitan University (Hungary). He has been working as a travel and tourism expert in the health, wellness, medical services and spa arenas for over 20 years. He founded the Tourism Observatory for Health, Wellness and Spa in 2012. He has participated in more than a hundred projects in various fields: research, planning, product development, experience mapping and design, impact assessment and marketing. László is an internationally known and acknowledged expert; he lectures at various international professional and academic conferences and congresses. He is the (co-)author of numerous specialised books (e.g. Health, Tourism and Hospitality (Routledge, 2013), Impacts of Tourism (Häme Polytechnic, 2002)) and articles in professional journals.

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