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Since health tourism is one of the most popular and most dynamically developing products of modern tourism, this paper aims at studying the characteristic features of health tourism destinations from a regional and spatial perspective. Accordingly, the authors would like to introduce a new approach of spatial and product analysis of tourism where the market and spatial relations and relevance of health tourism were analysed through the example of Hungary. Although the classic medical tourism centres were established on natural medical water basis, by today, due to product diversification, continuous innovation and the involvement of medical services into health tourism, the geographical embeddedness seems to disappear, thus basically restructuring the market. The methodological novelty of the research is that exceeding the classic supply–demand algorithm, we compiled a complex viewpoint system adequate to the specialities of the given product characteristics. In our study, the authors intend to survey the special characteristics of health tourism focusing on medical destinations through Hungarian examples since the country's leading position in the global market is well recognized, including medical services. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper presents and highlights the role and importance of spa and wellness tourism in Hungary. Ever since tourism has played an important role in the social-economic processes of the country the leading tourism product proved to be health tourism (spa and wellness) thanks to the advantageous physical geographical and social-political background. After the presentation of the country-specific theoretical system of spa and wellness, the paper examines the supply and the demand side together with competitor analysis and recent trends in spa and wellness in Hungary.

This study uses an innovative tourism product development approach, based on co-creation or customer involvement, related to Lake Balaton, a mass tourism-based destination in Hungary, from the point of view of the market segment of active cycling tourists. The investigation of opportunities for the development of cycling tourism first of all relies on the new approach of attraction and product development around the destination, in which it is important to take into consideration the consumer preferences of the most important related group of tourists—active cycling tourists. The sustainable approach of tourism product development also provides an opportunity to decrease the spatial and temporal concentration of tourism, which is largely concentrated on the summertime season. The aim of this study is to explore aspects of the customers’ demand for tourism development in terms of cycling tourism with the help of primary data collection, in order to provide adequate directions for sustainable tourism development in the destination. Revealing the demand side of active cycling tourism related to Lake Balaton, the authors used both qualitative (focus group discussions and structured interviews) and quantitative questionnaire survey (computer-assisted data collection) research methods. The latter online surveys were carried out in November and December, 2019, and resulted with an appraisable sample of 809 questionnaires. As for the method, descriptive statistics and relationship analyses were applied. More than five thousand (5050) possible relationships were examined between the closed answers of the questionnaire by Kendall’s rank correlation coefficient (τ) and Cramer’s V, depending on whether they could be measured on a nominal or ordinal scale. The results show that the content analysis of the primary research provides well determined directions for the sustainable tourism development of cycling tourism at Lake Balaton, so customer involvement seems to be a win-win situation both for the customers (tourists) and the decision makers.

Tudjuk, hogy a fogyasztói döntések szempontjai, illetve meghozataluk módjai időről időre változ­nak, ezért a döntéshozóknak és a kutatóknak is újabb és újabb kérdéseket kell megvizsgálniuk, hogy releváns megállapításokat tehessenek. Bár mindig is jelen volt a desztinációválasztásban, a bizton­ság kérdésköre nem túl régen jelent meg fokozottabb jelentőséggel a döntési szempontok között. Azért nyert ma más jelentőséget ez a kérdéskör, mert napjainkban a turizmussal egyre több olyan térség érhető el a szélesebb célközönség számára is, amelyek esetében relevánssá válik a biztonság vizsgálata, akár elsődleges szempontként kezelve azt. A tömegturizmus kedvelői nem vágynak koc­kázatra, sokkal inkább a kiszámíthatóságot preferálják, így számukra alapvető a biztonság. Tudjuk, hogy a vásárlási döntések komplexek, és nem csupán egyetlen tényező határozza meg a kimenetet, mégis célszerű időnként egy összetevőre koncentrálva feltenni az arra vonatkozó kérdéseket. Ta­nulmányunkban azt vizsgáljuk, mennyiben határozzák meg a magyar lakosság döntéseit a bizton­ság különböző területei, milyen szegmensek esetében játszanak kiemelt szerepet, és milyen arányú csoportok számára válnak sokadlagos kérdéssé. Munkánk alapja egy 2018-ban végzett országos, a felnőtt 15-74 éves lakosságra reprezentatív online megkérdezés adatbázisa. Ennek elemzésével jutunk eredményekhez.