Wellness tourism

Wellness tourism has become a growing market in the tourism industry, which has a high potential of development. Wellness tourism is tourists with motivations for acquiring health and wellbeing who choose a trip with awareness and reliance. As a result, wellness tourism starts on a trip to the outside and aims to improve the physical, mental, and social health; during the trip, the inside trip is formed and leads to identifying unifying with a creator. This study aims to investigate the role of wellness tourism in the spiritual health of the recreation-tourism village of Baghistan. This is qualitative, and its method is descriptive-analytical, in which the interviewing method with tourists has been used since Nov. 2023. After analyzing the qualitative method, the results of the study show that the positive impacts and positive personal feelings along with personal internal motivations are factors of wellness tourism which finally lead to spiritual health. Although wellbeing and journey are inseparable parts of the body, soul, and spirit, the component of self-knowledge, inner peace, allows the tourist to enjoy and satisfy with awareness of the trip, to touch more health, wellbeing, freshness, and integrity of the spiritual health dimensions.

Wellness tourism represents the intersection of a powerful lifestyle trend and a growing global industry. The purpose of this study is to design a pattern of wellness tourism with socio-cultural approach to improve the tourist’s health in (Baraghan Alborz village). In order to conduct the research, a Mixed Method has been used. The statistical population includes experts in the fields of tourism, health tourism, spiritual health, psychoanalysts and psychologists (qualitative part) and in the quantitative part, tourists of Baraghan Alborz village   period of July to August 2024 are considered. The size of the sample was determined in the qualitative method by the logical method of theoretical and judgmental sampling and until the theoretical saturation was reached, a total of 12 people, and in the quantitative part, 384 tourists (n = 384) were serveyed. For sampling, random sampling method was used. In the qualitative section using semi-structured interviews and Qualitative data coding was done in order to identify the components of wellness tourism in improving the health of tourists in Baraghan Alborz village, by theme analysis method. The questionnaire data were analyzed using factor analysis techniques with SPSS 26 software to assess the impact of the identified components. The findings indicate that the model of wellness tourism in improving the health of tourists, consists of 11 sub-themes, quality management of the wellness tourism destination, the necessity of linking science with wellness tourism, nature, physical dimension, mental dimension, social dimension and spiritual dimension, professional and expert team work, training and empowerment, nostalgia and memory-making, the characteristics of the unique wellness tourism model. Additionally, 7 main categories including destination management, the necessity of linking science with wellness tourism, nature, physical dimension, mental dimension, social dimension and spiritual dimension, which have the greatest impact in improving  the health of tourists in Baraghan village,has been achieved.The development of wellness tourism, while introducing Baraghan as a wellness tourism destination ,not only helps to improve the health of the community and tourists (which is one of the basic pillars of a healthy society), but also can create a sustainable livelihood for local communities and is focused on the support  and protection of natural, cultural and historical resources. By increasing the participation of local people in related activities and businesses, while expanding employment, it brought countless economic benefits to the tourist destination and ultimately country.