Wellness tourism service preferences and their linkages to motivational factors: a multiple case study

ABSTRACT

Responding to the research gap in cross-cultural studies in wellness tourism this study aims to increase the understanding about the differences in wellness tourists’ service preferences in different source markets by investigating how service preferences are associated with motivational factors. Based on 1,562 online survey responses from wellness tourists residing in Finland, Russia (St. Petersburg area), and Lithuania, an exploratory factor analysis and seemingly unrelated regression analysis were performed to analyse the cross-cultural differences. The results revealed that swimming pools, saunas, massages and body care are dominant services for all nationality groups, while services related to Eastern traditions are the least important. However, there are significant differences regarding the importance of services such as beauty treatment, services related to medical wellness, spa and wellness packages among others. An analysis of the associations between service preferences and motivational factors and significant differences in the strength and direction of those associations revealed that wellness tourists from different source markets may be driven by different motivations for choosing the same services.

KEYWORDS:

• Wellness tourism service
• service preference
• wellness tourist
• motivational factor
• tourist motivation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Elisa Sulkinoja from the University of Eastern Finland and Natalia Kolesnikova from the Institute of Physical Education (Russia) for participating in research planning.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation under Grant [number 00220176]; Karelia CBC programme under Karelian Wellness project [project number: KA8022].

Notes on contributors

Daumantas Bočkus

Daumantas Bočkus is Doctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland, Lecturer and Project Researcher at Klaipeda University, and Associate Professor at Lithuanian Business University of Applied Sciences. His research interests include wellness tourism development, destination marketing and competitiveness, tourist experience, entrepreneurship, and cultural differences.

Timo Tammi

Timo Tammi is a university lecturer at the University of Eastern Finland Business School. His research interests include decision making and the behaviour of small and medium-sized firms and consumers as well as applied quantitative analysis. He has published in journals such as Constitutional Political Economy, International Small Business Journal, Technovation and Annals of Tourism Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

Elli Vento

Elli Vento is an Early-Stage Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland Business School. Currently, she is exploring the effects of social tourism in the Finnish context.

Raija Komppula

Raija Komppula is Professor of Marketing, especially Tourism Business, at the University of Eastern Finland, Business School. Her research interests include research on tourist experience, customer involvement in new service development in tourism, destination branding, market orientation, small business research and entrepreneurship, cooperation and networks. She has conducted research on these topics especially in the context of nature based and rural tourism, and recently in wellbeing and social tourism. Professor Komppula has several positions of trust in tourism industry in Finland, and she is member of AIEST, TRC (Tourist Research Center) and ISTO.