What is Wellness and Spa?
Wellness as a tool for developing a healthier way of life
The term “Wellness” originally comes from England where it was already before the 18th century used as synonym for health and well-being.
In the 50´s and 60`s people developed a higher personal responsibility for their own health as a result of better education, higher competency for health and the growing awareness of how the own life style influences peoples´ health. But it was not before 1980, until these ideas and good intentions were more and more realised and further developed. These developments were the basis on the way to today’s wellness-hype.
The final push towards the ongoing wellness-hype was the result of the introduction of wellness packages and wellness offering by the tourism industry in the mid 1990´s. The wellness movement was further strongly supported by increasing problems within the national health care systems. More and more own personal responsibility was demanded as conceptual and structural difficulties had to be improved within the health care system internationally. Today we know that the enormous financial problems concerning the health care systems in industrialised countries are hardly solvable. But the people have understood that the main factor which can influence their personal health are the people themselves.
This is one of the main reasons for the immense worldwide growth of the heath tourism. Many people nowadays try to combine their holiday with useful and reasonable activities to improve or promote their health by using the benefit of wellness and medical wellness offerings.
From wellness treatments to complete wellness concepts
At the beginning hotels and beauty farms offered wellness packages, which concentrated purely on the well-beeing factor. Within these offers ideas concerning the guest’s health or precautionary measures with respect to illnesses were not included and not yet demanded.
Insofar the wide range of wellness treatments as we know them today has been growing and further developing over the last years. Even the contents of these treatments have gone through enormous changes and improvements.
Below you will find a list of wellness treatment examples:
- Anti aging analysis and therapy
- Cosmetics and further beauty treatments
- Spa’s (in all kinds of types)
- Classical physiotherapy treatments (e.g. massages)
- Kneipp treatments
- Sauna and steam bath variations
- Fitness training
- Lymph drainages
- Reflexology massages
- TCM (traditional Chinese medicine)
- Other programmes and treatments, which are questionable and/or scientifically proven absurd
- Bio resonance therapy
- Dark ground microscopy diagnostics
- Reiki
- Esoteric treatments etc.
The example list above displays the variety and complexity of wellness treatments and shows at the same time how little wellness establishments concentrate and focus on their customer’s interests and individual needs.
Modern wellness offers distinguish themselves not only by the quality of the establishment or personal but especially by offering well-structured, thought through and useful medical concepts as part of the treatment.
Taking these prerequisites as basis, it is not much further to today’s medical wellness treatments. Here complete, structured and individual wellness concepts on the basis of medical supervision are offered to the guests and customers, like measures for health status maintenance, health support and provision as well as methods to promote mental and spiritual well-being.
Caution: Well-rip-off!
And again the supplier side was quicker and we find today many swindle and rip-off offers and products instead of high quality offers. Terms like medical wellness crèmes, medical wellness podiatry or medical wellness food are often abused to promote the “legal” wellness rip-off! The fact that in Germany just about 1000 so hotels call themselves “Wellness Hotel” and compete for the customers favour shows that the factor quality has very often been reduced or sometimes even completely vanished to ensure highest profits with mass treatments of lowest quality. High quality insurance for the guests is hardly given on the market as only few controls exist. Certificates like our Wellness & SPA Europe Certificate, the Medical Wellness Europe Certificate and the Wellness & Golf Certificate guarantee control and highest wellness quality standards.
SPA – Often Wellness all about water treatments…
SPA facilities in earlier times had provided wellness offers where the substantial treatment is in connection with water. Today’s SPAs are often part of high quality wellness concepts and offer special international treatments and exercises often in connection with the medium water.
The exact source of the term Spa is debatable. Some people say that the term is derived from the town Spa in Belgium, others see a connection between the ancient roman bathing culture and the term SPA. The latin saying: “sanus per aquam“ (= healing through water) is closely associated with the term SPA which is likely to be its abbreviation.
Terms like for example Hotel & SPA, SPA Resort or Day SPA have spread from the US all around the globe and have settled in peoples habitual language use. In Europe these terms refer to establishments which provide treatments and offers closely related to the medium of water. Even the internal facilities of these locations focus on water in many different ways.
Internationally a “SPA” is the synonym for an establishmant for wellness and beauty treatments generally.
Wellness offers in a SPA
There are no minimum requirements set for SPA facilities but these establishments (in most of the cases these are hotels or resorts) offer very different treatments and services, depending on their geographical location:
- Steam bath and sauna
- Hydrotherapy
- Thalasso treatments
- Kneipp water treatments
- Kinesitherapy in the water
- other international treaments and massages
Additionally to these offers, the guest often has the choice of several other services which lie in the fields of cosmetics, fitness or even combined programmes. As it is the case with all other areas of wellness offers, their quality very much depends on the education and qualification of the treating personal staff, as well as the whole establishment itself and its effectiveness.