Satisfaction and loyalty evaluation towards health and wellness destination

Abstract

Nowadays, successful tourism destinations must offer diversity and new tourism products, addressing special interest niches, where it is possible to frame the health and wellness tourism, with special emphasis on thermal tourism. It has been observed some changes regarding the customer characteristics, treatments, products, and services made available, as a strategy to overcome imbalances in physical and psychological well-being, diagnosed in the consumer. It is in the spas, with body and mind recovery treatments offer, complementary to the classic treatments, that individuals recover their well-being and, consequently, improve their quality of life. The research, based on the collection of quantitative data from a sample of 201 participants in the North and Centre of Portugal, in a pandemic context (COVID'19), confirmed that the socio-demographic profile of the participants influences the choice of the available services; the most valued aspects in the selection of the thermal establishment influence the degree of satisfaction regarding the trip and the thermal experience, and the intention to recommend and revisit the destination; and, finally, the overall satisfaction with the thermal destination significantly influences the loyalty to the health and wellness destination. Main contributions were identified, concerning the quality and variety of treatments, infrastructure, price, location, access and service, and the need for product design and proposals directed at identified target markets.