Baltic Health Tourism: Uniqueness and Commonalities

Abstact

This paper examines health tourism in the Baltic States identifying resources and products common to the region as a whole and unique to each country. The Baltic States have successfully collaborated in tourism (especially promotion) for several years in an attempt to overcome the lack of a distinct image in the past and to place the Baltics on the tourist map. Collaborations and clusters are useful approaches for sharing good practice and improving quality and branding, and are essential to improving the competitiveness of health and wellness tourism destinations. A Baltic Health Tourism Cluster was established in 2013. Following the initial cluster launch, a Delphi Study involving several respondents from each Baltic country who are experts in the health, wellness, spas, medical and/or tourism fields was conducted. The focus was to help the Baltic countries identify the specifics in their health tourism resources, attractions and products while encouraging collaboration and a common regional brand for health tourism. Although too early to measure the success or effectiveness of the health tourism cluster, data help provide recommendations for product and destination development.

Key Words:

• Health tourism
• wellness
• spas
• medical tourism
• cluster
• destination development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

The author would like to express sincere appreciation for the support of the project (KTIA_AIK_12-1-2013-004), from the Research and Technology Innovation Fund (Kutatási és Technológiai Innovációs Alap).