Health and Wellness Tourism became one of the tourist markets with the major increase, and transformed into an important business including other sectors as the food industry, sports, medicine… Catalonia counts with a large number of wellness centres, spas, health resorts, thermal centres, balneotherapy, fitness centres and a long etcetera of confusing terminology. It all makes it more difficult to make an inventory of the existing offer and provokes confusion among the potential consumers who may be interested in some of those products but have doubts and may decline before a not well defined offer.

THR did a research and an analysis to find where Catalonia is situated in regard with Health and Wellness Tourism, and to define the actors and the establishments, the services offered, the way these services are offered and what should be included under the name of Health and Wellness Tourism.

Therefore, THR developed a methodology that included:

• Identification of different types of establishments in Catalonia.

• Surveys to the representatives of different types of establishments and to the directors of the main Tour Operators with specific health-related catalogues.

• Analysis of the facilities, equipment and services of each establishment in Catalonia in order to classify those in a determined typology. Afterwards, there was a categorization proposal designed for the identified typologies aiming to define the minimum quality standards.

• Analysis of the services and products offerd and the positioning that the market leaders (Germany, Switzerland and Austria) currently communicate and promote.

• Selection and inventory based on the defined criteria and establishments identified.

A definition on what can be put together under the name of Health and Wellness Tourism, and a classification of the existing establishments per categories and typologies. In short, a potential consumer can clearly comprehend the offer.

Finally, some guidelines were developed in order to optimize the competitive situation of the Catalonian Health and Wellness Tourism, and to improve its image in Europe.