A Review on the Relationship Between Health Tourism and Recreation With Case Studies

Abstract

Health tourism, which is among the alternative tourism types in tourism literature and evaluated as special interest tourism according to some sources, has come to the forefront as an important tourism type in recent years. Health tourism, in general, is a broad market that covers niche types such as thermal tourism, spa and wellness tourism, medical and dental tourism, senior tourism and accessible tourism. Although it is stated that the main purpose of health tourism is to protect and improve health, it is also aimed to meet the entertainment needs of tourists through accommodation, nutrition, rest and certain recreational activities. In particular, recreational activities do not only increase the quality of life of tourists for a short and temporary time, but also support their treatment by positively affecting their emotions. Therefore tourists who plan their travels within the scope of health tourism recently prefer facilities that will offer them different recreational experiences other than health services. Although it has been claimed in some studies that the recreational activities organized during the treatment, beyond the health services, make significant contributions to the wellbeing of the tourists, there are still a few remarkable studies in this area. The aim of this study, which was carried out in order to shed light on the gap in the field, is to evaluate the relationship between recreational activities and health tourism types, whose importance is increasing day by day within the scope of health tourism. For this purpose, first of all, health tourism and recreation are explained conceptually in the study and the relations between the two concepts are examined. In addition, by supporting the relations between health tourism and recreation with case studies, a contribution to the recreation literature has been made and new perspectives have been presented to business managers operating in the field of health tourism.