THERMAL HEALTH TOURISM

THERMAL HEALTH TOURISM

What is thermal health tourism?

Thermal health tourism is a health tourism service that is offered by taking advantage of the natural possibilities of thermal facilities that are often encountered in our country. Aromatherapy, an accepted treatment in modern medicine, is a common practice in our country. However, what many of us do not know is that there are many tourists who come to our country in the context of health tourism to benefit from the healing spas.

In the past, when health tourism activities were not as common as today, foreigners who wanted to come to these facilities came directly as tourists and tried to access various treatments with their own funds, mostly in places that were not structured as health facilities. With the development and spread of health tourism as a sector, these problems have largely disappeared.

Although thermal health tourism is considered under the name health tourism, it has different characteristics than medical health tourism. A spa facility cannot be defined as a medical facility unless it includes medical treatment. For this reason, institutions that provide services in this field do not need to obtain the necessary documents for health tourism. However, if the place where the service is provided is within a medical facility, a place with medical qualifications and the name of the service is treatment, the institution providing this service must be a type A health tourism agency.

How to market thermal health tourism?

Although there are no major difficulties in marketing local spa tourism, appropriate marketing methods must be used to ensure a continuous flow. Within today's marketing standards, marketing methods that use digital tools instead of traditional methods can provide much more effective and faster results.

It is very important to use social media tools and content to promote the facility and assist in the decision-making phase for those who will participate in thermal health tourism activities. Digital communication channels are an excellent basis for showing who receives this service, at which facility and under which conditions. They can be used not only for this purpose, but also to create brand awareness. Publishing videos of the facilities on YouTube is also very effective.

In addition, institutions and organizations operating in the tourism sector should not have a website. All companies and agencies should create effective websites and pay attention to the SEO work they need to rank high in search results. Otherwise, it is obvious that the lack of an institutional source of information from which tourists can obtain information about the facility will pose a serious trust problem in terms of awareness and accessibility.

How should the marketing of thermal health tourism be done for foreign tourists?

All tourism agencies should first diversify their websites, especially in English, depending on the target audience. A specific target group is then determined and geographically targeted marketing is carried out. The most visited countries for spa tourism are Central European countries and Scandinavian countries. By targeting countries such as Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, you can enable digital marketing applications for other parts of the world over time. You can precisely meet your marketing needs in thermal tourism and health tourism and realize serious potential.