The rising spa tourism in Turkey

Some tourism data from the world and from Turkey: According to World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), demand for tourism in the world has increased 46.9 percent and tourism revenues are up 11.1 percent in the past 10 years.

The number of tourists estimated to travel to Turkey in 2013 is 33 million, with tourism revenue estimated at $25.4 billion.

After this data, let’s look at “Spa and Wellness” tourism that has emerged as the rising trend of tourism recently.

Aksoy Group, which entered the tourism sector in 1988, owns the Richmond Nua Hotel near Sapanca Lake, a place regarded as the best equipped Spa and Wellness hotel in Turkey.

They have won a few national and international awards in this branch of tourism.

Member of the executive committee of Aksoy Group and the marketing and sales manager of the 2,000-bed capacity Richmond hotels, Belgin Aksoy shared her views on the spa and wellness trend.

Aksoy has attended Global Spa and Wellness summits held in several cities across the world since 2007, including New York, Istanbul and Bali. She said Richmond Nua was the only Spa and Wellness hotel from Turkey that has been participating in the summits consecutively for six years.

Aksoy has an interesting explanation about why Spa and Wellness was a rising trend in global tourism. More precisely, she stated that this explanation was voiced in every summit she has participated in.

“Depression will be the most important health issue threatening the world in 2030, according to World Health Organization (WHO). Those using anti-depressants between 1996 and 2005 in the Unites States have doubled,” she said.

According to the information Aksoy has provided, while costs of advertisements for anti-depressants in 1996 in the U.S. was $32 million, this figure went up to $122 million in 2005. This enormous hike in anti-depressants is no doubt an important indicator.

Again, according to WHO, today there are 1.6 billion fat people in the world and 300 million of them fall into the category of “clinically obese.” According to WHO data, the obesity trend is rising both for grownups and children.

Hence, while the risks of depression and obesity are at the horizon, it is an inevitable result that people are more interested in “healthy living” and literally flock to Spa and Wellness centers.

When we turn the spotlight to Richmond Nua Hotel, we see that 25 percent of the hotel’s revenues are coming from Spa and Wellness guests. Aksoy said 20 percent of the guests were coming from abroad with the British leading, followed by Germans, French, Dutch, Americans and Japans are also among Spa customers.

In the seven years since the Richmond Nua Hotel was opened, the number of massages and treatments it has sold was 95,000. This is a figure hard to be underestimated.

Aksoy said Richmond hotels had $45 million of turnover in 2011 and their target was $250 million in 2020, adding, “In the hotel investments we will make in the future, we will increasingly focus more on Spa and Wellness.”