Health and healthy lifestyle

Health

„Health is a state of complete physical, mintal and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease of infirmity” (WHO, 1948)

„The extent to which an individual or a group is able to realize aspirations and satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment. Health is a resource of everyday life, not the objective of living; it is a positive concept, emphasizing social and personal resources as well as physical capabilities.” (WHO, 1984)

Lifestyle concept

The lifestyle concept is one of the most widely used in modern marketing activities because it provides a way to understand consumers’ everyday needs and wants. One of the problems of using the concept of lifestyle in marketing is that segments are generally defined, but Solomon (2006) suggests that this problem be overcome by taking into account only those variables that are relevant to a specific domain of consumption.

Preservation and promotion of health

Healthy lifestyle refers to a specific lifestyle that is focused on specific domain of consumption (Solomon et al., 2006) because consumers who pursue this kind of lifestyle focus on preservation and promotion of their health. Heath preservation and promotion represents one of the basic trends in contemporary tourism and is a foundation of wellness tourism as a form of special interest tourism. Wellness tourism is usually analyzed as a business concept, but it may also be observed as an additional service in a hotel.

Health preservation and promotion, as a consumers’ special interest, is recognized as a good business opportunity in tourism resulting in creation of wellness tourism. Wellness tourism is regarded as a subcategory of health tourism. It is pursued solely by "healthy" people”, whose prime aim is preserving or promoting their health, although they may use a comprehensive service package that may consist of services that are used by "normal cure guests". Wellness tourism integrates various programmers and treatments intended for the contemporary tourist with the purpose of achieving their health preservation and promotion e.g. natural agents, exercise, anti-stress programmers, therapy, beauty programs.