Implications of Servicescape on Health and Wellness Tourism in 4-Star Hotels
摘要
The concept of wellness has been gaining prominence in health tourism, despite the difficulty in conceptualizing and defining it in studies in this area. Wellness can be considered as one of the main branches of health tourism, interrelated with spa tourism and medical tourism, making the lines of separation difficult to draw. Considering the types of services and products offered by this type of tourism, its demand requires a differentiation between hotel units that provide this type of tourism. Through their wellness and well-being spaces, hotels can provide innovative experiences for their customers. To leverage the experiences provided, hotels have the concept of servicescape and its dimensions at their disposal: environment, layout and functionality, signs, symbols, and artifacts, the servicescape. Servicescape influences both customers and employees. It has the potential to assist in gaining a competitive advantage and differentiation. To understand the implications of the characteristics of servicescape in the context of wellness and well-being tourism, a qualitative methodology was adopted, and a survey through interviews was conducted with managers/directors of well-being and wellness spaces in hotels in the Leiria district in Portugal. To complement the data analysis, comments published on Booking and TripAdvisor platforms were also analyzed.