Establishment of a value evaluation system for health and wellness tourism resources: Reflections on China's official tourism resource evaluation criteria

PLoS One. 2023 Jul 14;18(7):e0288749. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288749. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

In recent years, China's sub-healthy and aging populations have increased dramatically, giving rise to a series of health and wellness needs. People prefer health and wellness tourism activities instead of sightseeing tourism activities because of the increasing emphasis on safety and experience. Health and wellness tourism resources are a prerequisite for the development of health and wellness tourism. To critically reflect on China's official tourism resource evaluation criteria, expert consultation was carried out by applying the Delphi method, and index weights were determined using the analytic hierarchy process. Through three rounds of expert consultation, a value evaluation system for health and wellness tourism resources was established and improved in three aspects: construction of an index system, selection of evaluation subjects, and grade discourse description, thus enhancing the feasibility and application value of the evaluation system. The system developed in this study not only enables a reflection on China's official tourism resource evaluation criteria, but also presents a new approach in the value evaluation research of health and wellness tourism resources.

MeSH terms

  • China
  • Humans
  • Tourism*

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant number 41861032 (for Dashuai Gao) and grant number 41801120 (for Juhua Hong). Hong contributed to the study design and preparation of the manuscript, and Gao collected data for the study.