The current fast lifestyle, workload and stress negatively affect the national health. The growth of health awareness is reflected in requirements of the spa products. The aim of the article is to show the relationship of traditional spas and health tourism and explore present trends in meeting demand for services of Slovak Health Spa. Analysis of selected spa offer indicates the transition from the traditional products of medical treatment to the products of wellness, fitness, beauty with typically shorter duration for specific target groups of guests.

The competitiveness and networking in tourism destinations is a well discussed topic among tourism scholars. However, the influence of partnerships of destination stakeholders on tourism competitiveness is under‑researched. This paper contributes to the recent debate on partnerships and tourism destination competitiveness, including the gargantuan compilations of competitiveness factors by Ritchie and Crouch (2003), or Dwyer and Kim (2003), by examining the link among these two variables. The central question underlying this paper is whether partnerships of private and public sector stakeholders contribute to the destination competitiveness. The analysis is based on the quantification of destinations’ competitiveness in Slovakia and the level of partnership by the creation of the partnership index. The paper concludes that the level of partnership positively affects the destination competitiveness.

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