Well-being holidays in Italy

Italian spa sector has a tradition of offering inclusive well-being services.  The growing wellness market, recorded a turnover of 280 million euros ($350m/£185m) in 2004, while the entire wellness market in Italy at estimated at around 20 billion euros ($25b/£13b).

Health and spa facilities in Italy can accommodate nearly 220,000 people: 124,000 in hotels and 95,700 in non-hotel accommodation. The hotel sector mainly consists of 2 and 3 star hotels, respectively 51.6% and 23.2% of the total, while most non-hotel accommodation is concentrated in rented housing (27.2%), camping facilities and villages (9.7%).

The regions with the highest amount of accommodation for this product are Friuli Venezia Giulia, with around 80,000 beds in mainly non-hotel facilities, and Tuscany, Veneto and Emilia Romagna, which mainly have hotel accommodation. Registered health and spa resorts in Italy number just over 2,000 companies in 2002, 6.8% more than 2003. The Integrated offerings with sports and discovery of local culture

In Italy, health as a personal need was rediscovered in the 1980s. The desire to “stay in shape” in a civilisation of abundance, have led people to enhance their psychophysical wellbeing and look after their appearance and image.

Specialised health and beauty centres are spreading in order to cater to the demand for personal “restoration” and “rejuvenation”. They come in many types, from beauty farms to cosmetic surgery clinics.

Entrepreneurs are focusing on a more integrated offer to push the health and spa sector forward by developing advanced beauty centres, which linked with nearby sporting facilities and golf courses.

In conjunction with psychophysical wellbeing, specialised wellness centres also offer other activities such as discovery of the local area, its food, wine and cultural, with packages which extend the average stay to 2 days 2 to 5-7 days.

First class hotels in the main holiday destinations are equipping themselves to provide leisure and business clients with health and beauty services, such as indoor spas and personalised treatments ranging from ayurvedic treatments to other eastern traditional beauty treatments. The Terme Euganee in Veneto, for example, offers vacation packages that combine the stay in Venice with a trip to the mountains and a wellbeing holiday at the Terme.

Foreign tourists arrivals in Italy ’well on its way’

Foreign visitors to health and spa tourist destinations are relatively few – only Tuscany receive a significant number of foreign tourists – but it is increasing in respect to previous years, especially tourists from the United States.

However, the number of tourists booking through European tour companies is rather high for accommodation facilities located in the leading wellbeing tourism areas. For example, last Easter it was equal to 34%, over a third of the clientele.

Furthermore, a fifth of European tour operators sell Italian health and spa destinations (19.3% in 2005, compared to 21.6% in 2004).

The demand for Italian wellbeing products is expected to remain stable in 2006, although 10.3% of operators report an increase, especially in the US market.

Italian spa resorts are mainly visited by senior tourists traveling independently, or couples with no children coming from the medium to high social class who have a strong cultural background and are in high income bracket.

On the US market, wellbeing products are sold by 7% of U.S. tour operators, an increase of 17.5% in respect to the previous year. The best selling destinations are Veneto (Terme Euganee, Abano), followed by Tuscany (Montecatini) and Campania (Ischia), often purchased in combination with a cultural tour.

Spa location in the Italian regions and their percentage distribution

Source: Mercury data

  Spa hotels in Italy:
  number of facilities and number of rooms; # of facilities and percentage distribution:

 Source: Mercury data

Major health centres at the spa establishments or at health and spa hotels:
# of establishments and percentage distribution
 

Source: Mercury data

Source: 2002 Mercury data
Courtesy of GUIDA VIAGGI, Milan, Italy