Health tourism gets boost in Hawai'i
By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer
A new organization plans a major marketing push to promote health and wellness tourism, a budding niche market in Hawai'i's visitor industry.
Author Laura Crites founded the Hawaii Wellness Tourism Association to encourage visitors seeking health and wellness services in the Islands and to raise money for promotion. The association is starting off with about 30 members.
Crites founded Aloha Wellness Travel when she decided to focus on health and wellness in 2001.
She also co-authored a guidebook on wellness tourism with her sister Betsy Crites using a $20,000 grant last year from the Hawai'i Tourism Authority. The guide book covers more than 300 health and wellness service providers, including Hawaiian healers, massage therapists, acupuncturists and fitness experts.
Other wellness publications that cover the health and wellness industry include Kaua'i-based magazine Zento, which is expanding statewide.
"There's a lot happening in the wellness field," said Hawai'i Visitors & Convention Bureau president Tony Vericella. "You really need an association or group to really pull the different things together. Many of the providers are very small businesses."
Crites said health and wellness tourism encompasses everything from chiropractic healing to community service.
"It's more than spas and resorts," she said. "To come to Hawai'i to spend a week building a house with the working poor or clearing trails can be a wellness experience."
The association's advisory board includes Peter Schall, Hilton Hotels in Hawai'i senior vice president, and Hawai'i Visitors & Convention Bureau executives, Crites said.
Part of the Hawai'i Tourism Authority's strategic plan that focuses on attracting higher-spending visitors to Hawai'i involves health and wellness tourism.
"We see this as a developing market for us," said Frank Haas, marketing director for the Hawai'i Tourism Authority. "You might come here for a vacation but go to a spa or you might come here to get some kind of a medical treatment."
Reach Kelly Yamanouchi at kyamanouchi@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2470 .
