Well-being and wellness tourism – Same, same but different? Conceptual discussions and empirical evidence
Keywords:
well-being, wellness, tourism, consumptionAbstract
During the past decades, health and well-being have become important motives for consumption, attracting the interest of scholars from different disciplines. One of the major challenges concerning both academic research and the well-being tourism industry is, however, the conceptual confusion related to the key terms well-being and wellness. The inconsistent use of the concepts is likely to lead to misunderstandings, false expectations, and unsuccessful tourism experiences. The current study examines how well-being and wellness are defined within consumer and tourism research, and, based on qualitative data (n=22), analyses how they are understood and used within the tourism industry. The results highlight a weak conceptual understanding among the industry professionals, and confirm that there are severe inconsistencies in the use of the key concepts. Wellness was far more commonly used than well-being, contradicting the recommendations of the Finnish Tourist Board, which considers well-being as a more suitable for the Finnish context. Furthermore, there seems to be a lack of understanding and even ignorance of how important conceptual clarity is for the formation of tourists’ expectations and experiences. Therefore, further research is needed and requires collaboration with the well-being tourism industry.
