Problems of spa tourism in Russia
Despite the growing demand for wellness services, stable dynamics of economic growth in the segment have not yet been achieved.
The following factors negatively influence the price/quality ratio and clients satisfaction towards domestic sanatoriums:
- high cost of travel
- unsatisfactory accommodation, state of equipment and qualification of the staff unsatisfactory level of services
- lack of state control over curative resources
- lack of effective advertising (especially through the Internet)
- lack of detailed information of sanatorium services included in tour packages
4
- treating wellness tourists as patients and lack of customer service
- increased competition with foreign wellness resorts
One of the main problems is the lack of an effective system for selling wellness tours. Unfortunately, we lost the tradition which existed in the Soviet years of medical doctors recommending appropriate resorts to patients in accordance to their health condition. Currently, the seller of curative and wellness tours is a tourist agency where the staff has little knowledge about either diseases and diagnosis or about the treatments and curative factors which exist in the resorts. However, this information is essential for making the right choice in the destination. Often tourists rely of mouth, choosing the resort or get information from the
As the result, the number of premature departures (due to a mismatch between the sanatorium profile and the health condition of the client frequent hospitalization (after treatment in sanatoriums) and even cases of fatality are growing