Hot springs as an alternative for sustainable wellness tourism in Colombia

Abstract

Producto de investigación, periodo 2015-I, Facultad de Ciencias Administrativas Económicas y Contables FCAEC. 2015-I

Colombia has recently identified the tourism sector as one of the key strategic areas with the potential to improve the nation´s productivity. Health and wellness tourism is an area of particular attention in the country, having increased dramatically during the last few years. However, efforts made for increasing demand of foreign visitors are still very focused around health services, leaving wellness tourism nearly untapped. Although the government has expressed an interest in increasing the importance of wellness tourism as a share of total tourism exports, current knowledge about the tourism management of hot springs is still at a very infant state, and more research on the subject needs to be done. This study aims to address this knowledge gap by analyzing the supply of thermal and medicinal waters as an alternative that may have a potential for sustainable wellness tourism in Colombia. For so doing an exploratory qualitative research methodology was applied, analyzing three Colombian municipalities chosen as case studies