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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Abstract: One of the tourism industry’s segments with the strongest growth rates today is health
tourism. Health tourism includes two subgroups: medical tourism (traveling outside one’s country
of residence for the purpose of receiving medical care, such as surgery and health services) and
wellness tourism (travel to specific locations for health promotion in a preventive way). The economic strength and sustainable growth of nations can both benefit from health tourism. This study
applies a methodology to quantify the potential of Portuguese wellness tourism (thermal spas in
Northern Portugal) using a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) tool, namely the preference
ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) and geometrical analysis
for interactive aid (GAIA), to achieve a robust evaluation and ranking the alternatives. Therefore,
in this study, the aim is to rank ten thermal spas in Northern Portugal in terms of fifteen indicators,
mostly related to digital services, containing the tourism data obtained between 2020 and 2022. The
suggested approach offers trustworthy and reliable outcomes for any qualitative or quantitative
criteria to assess thermal spas, which is crucial for consumers, businesses, and even governments.
The results showed that PROMETHEE and GAIA can be implemented as an effective method in
wellness tourism destinations evaluation.
Description
Keywords
Multiple criteria analysis Decision making Health tourism Digital services Wellness tourism PROMETHEE-GAIA Medical tourism