Abstract
The purpose of the study is to identify a set of key indicators with weightings for health tourism destinations by using an advanced analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, derived from the official, academic, and professional opinions of the experts. The AHP method allocated weightings to the evaluation criteria selected by the fifteen experts. After expert evaluations were conducted, the three dimensions and eleven sub-dimensions of the initial health tourism destination were obtained as follows: (1) special demands and indications—medical care, health promotion, and tourism and leisure; (2) natural environment—climate, air, water, and light; (3) leisure activities and general demands—sports, therapeutic activities, interactions with animals and plants, and diet. The results revealed that the dimensions of special demands and indications were given the most attention and that the sub-dimensions of sports promotion were the highest ranked by expert groups. The official and academic opinions suggested that health tourism destinations should focus on special demands and indications, while professionals tended to consider the natural environment as a primary concern. In particular, they considered that good air quality can help people release pressure, relax, activate lymphocytes, improve immune function, and enhance disease immunity. The health tourism destination index can contribute to the overall strategic planning process by identifying improvements in activities and enhancing competitiveness in health tourism management by using benchmarking to further improve tourists’ experience and satisfaction.
Highlights
The Healthy China 2030 initiative promotes the integration of health-related industries in order to develop standards and accelerate the growth of health tourism [1]
The results of consistency determination revealed that all eleven questionnaires were valid and applicable and that the weights of the health tourism destination index were as follows: 38.01% for special demands and indications, 32.24% for leisure activities and general demands, and 29.75% for natural environment factors
From the perspective of health tourism, and based on a literature review, this study developed a health tourism destination index with three dimensions and eleven sub-dimensions
Summary
The Healthy China 2030 initiative promotes the integration of health-related industries in order to develop standards and accelerate the growth of health tourism [1]. Exploration and innovation initiatives have been conducted, such tasks are insufficient as a basis for promulgating policies to standardize and guide the development of the health tourism industry. According to tourists’ health status, health tourists can be divided into those seeking leisure-oriented tourism, health-promoting tourism, and medicine-oriented tourism. Leisure-oriented tourists seek risk-taking activities and new experiences during travel, whereas medicine-oriented tourists prefer to have their diseases treated and their health restored [17]. Compared with Mueller and Kaufmann’s study in 2001, which classified health tourism from tourists’ perspectives [17], the Japanese Institute of Tourism Research (JITR) divided health tourists into four types based on experts’. Public Health 2019, 16, x perspectives, according to their leisure and medical activities: (1) Tourism—tourists desire sightseeing, perspectives, according to their leisure and medical activities: (1) Tourism—tourists desire learning, and tourism experiences based on health; (2) health want sightseeing, learning, and tourism experiences basedand onphysical health;improvement—tourists (2) health and physical to improve exercise habits, reduce stress, enhance and go sightseeing;
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