Wellness Tourism Resorts: A Case Study of an Emerging Segment of Tourism Sector in Greece

Wellness tourism has recently been a fast-growing form of tourism, with continuously developing aspects that can produce massive profits. In Greece, health and wellness have been interconnected since the ancient times. The current objective is how to connect wellness to tourism. Wellness resorts are an aspect of wellness tourism which has only recently appeared in Greece. This type of hotels can be successful and competitive toward the resorts that operate abroad only if they focus on combining qualitative and innovative services with the local features of the area in which they operate. This paper aims to fill in the research gap that exists about wellness resorts in Greece, as well as about the specific characteristics of the visitors and the prospects of growth that wellness tourism has in Greece. Initially, it presents statistics related to health and wellness tourism, as well as to wellness resorts in Greece and worldwide. Secondly, it includes the primary research that has been conducted at two levels: The first level of research, which was conducted on the general public, resulted to conclusions on the public’s viewpoints about wellness resorts. The second level of research was conducted on wellness resorts in Greece, in order to define the specific characteristics of their visitors. The study offers conclusions as well as potential policies for the state and the entrepreneurs that can be implemented for the publicity and the promotion of this profitable form of tourism.