Spa tourism opportunities as strategic sector in aiding recovery from Covid-19: The Spanish model

Abstract

Spa tourism has been experiencing over the last decades significant changes in its nature. Supply and demand have changed in recent years, impacting on the function of thermal centers in general, and on the use of their base resource, mineral-medicinal water, in particular. Recently, this productive sector has been forced to resituate itself due to the unexpected outbreak of the Covid pandemic whose impacts on the sector are still to be fully calibrated, although it has already halted a large part of economic activity and global flows of people and goods. The present investigation examines the function and potential that spas have as health agents. In the case of Spain, this research note reflects on the opportunities, for a repositioning of this activity in the tourist dynamics that arise during and after a period of crisis.