康养旅游相关概念辨析与国际研究进展

康养旅游(wellness tourism)隶属于健康旅游(health tourism)的范畴,是新近国际旅游研究的热点领域。文章通过对康养旅游概念的源起及其流变的梳理,辨明了康养旅游与健康旅游、温泉疗法、疗养旅游、医疗旅游等相关概念的关系。研究表明,康养旅游的产品形式会根据不同国家和地区的资源禀赋、健康政策、消费市场的特点而产生变化,因此,不同地区的康养旅游内涵、构成与产品形式是学术界研究的焦点之一。而在康养旅游的功能分析上,主要聚焦于对人的身体、精神以及生活质量等方面。最后,康养旅游者出游前的动机、旅游中的体验与游后的满意度和行为意向构成了康养旅游者研究的主体内容。康养旅游是中国旅游业转型发展的一条可行道路,应从国家政策保障、目的地建设和公民健康观念入手,培育中国康养旅游市场,提升全民健康水平。同时,文章也为未来中国康养旅游的研究议题提出了相关建议。

Key Concepts and Progress in Wellness Tourism

The word "wellness" coined after "well-being" and "fitness", addresses all aspects of human well-being including body, mind and spirit. Based on the concept of wellness, wellness tourism may cover all activities and benefits resulted from a whole journey or stay at a destination by those who are interested in improving their health. The definitions of health tourism are ever-changing and often determined by different regional history, social system, technology and lifestyle. The foundation of the classic health tourism was laid in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, where the balneotherapy was invented to medicate illnesses. After World War II, the idea of balneotherapy was transformed and cure destinations were developed to treat injured soldiers in Europe. Later, with the emergence of health insurance companies, the middle class was also able to afford cure tourism. However, cure destinations are often perceived as boring due to its main service to patients compared to other tourist destinations. Wellness tourism, instead of cure tourism, became a new trend since the mid 19 th century. With the globalization of new technologies and the reduction of transport costs, the demand for affordable medical treatments offered in countries abroad has been increasingly higher. As part of health tourism, medical tourism focuses on those activities in which a person travels often long distance or across the border, to obtain medical services with direct or indirect engagement in other activities in the same destinations. This article reviews recent literatures about wellness tourism in three aspects. Firstly, wellness can be understood as a state of health featuring the harmony of body, mind and spirit, with self-responsibility, physical fitness/beauty care, health nutrition/diet, relaxation/meditation, mental activity/education and environmental sensitivity/social contacts as fundamental elements. Due to the difference in health resources and policies around the world, there is great diversity among wellness tourism products around the world. Secondly, wellness tourism has been proved to affect body health, spirit and quality of life positively. Thirdly, plenty of researches focused on the motivation, experience, satisfaction and invention behavior of wellness tourists. These researches about wellness tourism contribute to the marketing of destinations of wellness tourism and the improvement of management in wellness hotels. In the end, we conclude that wellness tourism may enlighten China’s tourism industry on its on-going reform. From policy-making to destination planning, and the education of ordinary people’s conception about wellness, there are still a lot of challenges for the governments in China to deal with in order to develop a well-rounded wellness tourism industry. However, the further development of wellness tourism may also bring China’s tourism industry into a new development stage, which will be beneficial to public health and economic sustainability.