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Many travelers pay close attention to their health when they go on vacation . The image was created by AI. |
This shift is creating significant opportunities for wellness tourism – a segment that combines travel, relaxation, and health care. For Vietnam, this could be a new direction to enhance destination value, but it also highlights the need to avoid developing a wellness model simply by adding spas to hotels or labeling a resort as "health care."
Travel and healthcare experts believe that, post-pandemic, perceptions of travel are changing significantly, with health increasingly becoming an integral part of the experience rather than just a need to be met when problems arise. As the world's population ages, the trend towards healthy living, longevity, and proactive disease prevention is reshaping traveler behavior. They are no longer simply seeking a beautiful destination or a vacation, but are increasingly interested in experiences that promote physical recovery, energy rejuvenation, mental balance, improved nutrition, and long-term health maintenance.
This is the fundamental difference of wellness tourism. While traditional leisure tourism sells relaxing experiences, wellness aims to create more positive changes to the health and quality of life of travelers.
According to Dr. Pham Hoang Manh Ha, a lecturer at the Faculty of Tourism, Hong Duc University, the growing trend of proactive health care worldwide opens up opportunities for Vietnam to develop wellness tourism. This is not only a new segment to expand the market but also a way to upgrade the value of destinations, as natural resources, local culture, and healthcare services are connected to create high-value-added experiences.
If developed professionally, linked to resource conservation and green standards, wellness can contribute to shifting the tourism industry from purely exploitation to sustainable development, while also creating incentives for longer stays and increased spending by tourists.
Vietnam has many favorable conditions for deeper participation in this market. Its long coastline, diverse ecosystems, rich climate, numerous mountainous areas, forests, mineral springs, and natural landscapes provide a foundation for developing health-focused resort products. However, a more significant advantage may lie in its indigenous values.
The abundance of medicinal herbs, traditional medicine, health preservation methods, herbal therapies, and experiences associated with traditional healthcare culture are resources that not every destination can replicate.
According to Dr. Vu Tien Dat, Director of the Institute for Research and Development of Traditional Medicine, to effectively exploit the potential of wellness tourism, tourism businesses and accommodation establishments need to shift from providing purely recreational services to building specialized health care product systems. In particular, correctly identifying customer groups with needs for proactive health care, physical recovery, energy regeneration, and mental balance is a crucial factor in designing suitable products.
This is a problem the tourism industry needs to seriously consider. A herbal treatment, a meditation program, yoga, wellness practice, or nutritional menu, when considered individually, is unlikely to create a competitive wellness product. The value lies in the ability to connect them into a complete journey with specific health goals and organized by a team of professionals.
Vietnam does not lack resources for wellness. What is lacking is the capacity to transform these resources into standardized, branded products with commercial viability. The biggest challenge for the market may not be the lack of destinations, but rather the risk of superficial development.
As wellness becomes a trend, simply adding a few massage, spa, yoga, or "healthy" menu services to accommodations is no longer enough to create a truly meaningful wellness tourism product.
Without professional standards, a skilled workforce, and effective quality control mechanisms, wellness can easily become more of a marketing concept than a genuine value.
In particular, when products are directly related to health, the line between tourism services and medical care needs to be clearly defined. Therapeutic, nutritional, rehabilitation, or herbal medicine programs must be based on appropriate professional expertise, avoiding the transformation of traditional values into exaggerated claims about their effectiveness.
This also requires closer collaboration between tourism businesses, accommodation establishments, health professionals, medical facilities, medicinal plant research units, and local communities. When these links are connected, Vietnam's advantages can be translated into a truly sustainable wellness ecosystem.
It's worth noting that wellness tourism has the potential to create a wider ripple effect than a typical tourism product. Tourists visiting Vietnam for relaxation might only consume accommodation, food, and sightseeing services. However, a tourist seeking a wellness experience might also utilize additional services such as therapy, nutrition, sports, health care, herbal products, and local cultural experiences. In this case, the value extends beyond the hotel room to multiple economic sectors and local communities. This also presents an opportunity to develop a value chain from medicinal herb sources and health care product manufacturing to healthy cuisine, accommodation, and tourism experiences.
If done well, indigenous products such as herbs, health and wellness products, traditional cuisine , or folk health care methods can be standardized, upgraded, and integrated into professional wellness programs. The value then lies not in selling individual ingredients or services, but in the ability to own a complete, experiential product. This is a crucial shift from resource exploitation to value creation.
Source: https://thoibaonganhang.vn/du-lich-viet-nam-khong-chi-ban-diem-den-ma-ban-gia-tri-suc-khoe-188439.html
