Health, Tourism and Hospitality Spas, Wellness and Medical Travel

Happiness, wellbeing, relaxation, and rejuvenation are among the many concepts associated with tourism and more recently have become the focus for a number of tourism researchers. Medical tourism or health tourism provider offer complete information on medical facilities, service providers, medical professionals, travel agencies, resorts, medical/travel insurance overseas as well as of local areas. Millions of medical travelers travel overseas for their medical, dental, and cosmetic procedures. A health tourism provider or medical tourism provider is an organisation or a company which seeks to bring together a prospective patient with a service provider, usually a hospital or a clinic. If the patient is crossing international borders to obtain medical care, then that individual would usually be known as a medical tourist. These groups are generally facilitators and developers of medical tourism, which brings into play a number of issues that do not apply when a patient stays within their own country of origin. Health tourism providers make information available about the hospitals, clinic and the doctors that they are partnered with, but the nature, extent and quality of the information provided by different organisations and companies working in this field varies enormously. A spa offering on-site natural mineral, thermal, or sea water, which is used in professionally administered hydrotherapy treatments. This spa typifies the spa product offering focusing on health and wellness. The concept of well-being, for example, especially the subjective wellbeing of those who travel, has recently received empirical attention in tourism studies. This book, Health, Tourism and Hospitality: Spas, Wellness and Medical Travel, takes an in-depth and comprehensive look at the growing health, wellness and medical tourism sectors in a global context. The book analyses the history and development of the industries, the way in which they are managed and organised, the expanding range of new and innovative products and trends, and the marketing of destinations, products and services.