What makes wellness tourism worth a premium?: The roles of place-based distinctiveness, personalization, and verifiable effectiveness

This study identifies the advanced quality factors that lead wellness tourism experiences the effects of these factors on perceived wellness value and willingness to pay a price premium. Whereas previous studies have mainly addressed the relationships among service quality, satisfaction, and revisit intention, this study focuses on the process through which the quality of wellness tourism is translated into users’ value perceptions and economic acceptance. To this end, place-based distinctiveness, personalization, and verifiable effectiveness were established as the advanced quality factors that form the differentiated value of wellness tourism experiences; verifiable effectiveness refers to users’ perception of the evidence underlying a service and of the extent to which its effects can be confirmed. An online survey was administered to adults who had experienced wellness tourism - such as spas and hot springs, forest healing, meditation and yoga, or retreats - within the past year. After careless responses were excluded, 280 valid responses were analyzed with SPSS and AMOS using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results showed that place-based distinctiveness, personalization, and verifiable effectiveness all had significant positive effects on perceived wellness value, with verifiable effectiveness exerting the strongest influence. Perceived wellness value, in turn, had a significant positive effect on willingness to pay a price premium. The mediation analysis showed that personalization and verifiable effectiveness had significant indirect effects on willingness to pay a price premium through perceived wellness value, whereas the indirect effect of place-based distinctiveness was not significant. These findings suggest that the premiumization of wellness tourism can be strengthened through local distinctiveness, personalized services, and systems that allow users to recognize and confirm the evidence and effects of wellness services.