New article on wellness tourism published by Karen Thal and Simon Hudson

“We can now go on vacation and come back rejuvenated – instead of the way we normally come back which is exhausted, broke and fat.”

This was a quote from one of our interviewees at a leading wellness destination in South Carolina, where we are conducting research to understand more about this fast-growing sector of the tourism industry. Wellness tourism is what we consider the ‘softer’ side of medical tourism and is the subject of a new article published in the Medical Tourism Magazine February 2014 issue. An increasing number of wellness facilities are responding to growing global demand for wellness tourism, catering to the physical and psychological needs of guests while promising enhanced wellbeing – benefits that visitors can take home when the holiday is over. A far cry from more traditional vacations spent lounging on a beach or pool-side chair. The questions remains, how does a wellness facility support wellbeing beyond traditional forms of relaxation? Our research to date provides tentative insights into the manner in which psychological wellbeing is facilitated. To read more, visit: http://www.medicaltourismmag.com/issue/issue-30/ pages 104-106.