Turismo de salud y bienestar en la Región de Murciaun análisis sociojurídico

Abstract

1. Summary The Region of Murcia has experienced and continues to experience a constant increase in the influx of foreign tourists in its various holiday destinations, these tourists once made and continue to make a significant purchase of homes, which gave rise to a social category known asResidential Tourism (non-residents). This population increase was demanding numerous leisure, health, wellness and medical services, making the different companies and agents in the sector try to "capture" and/or adapt their portfolio of services to them. The intense use of the social security system by these foreigners made the agents of the leisure, medical-health and wellness sector see an opportunity and a new market niche in them, trying day by day to improve and implement those tourist services that satisfy the new needs of the tourists. 2. Intended objectives The general objective of the doctoral thesis is: "To know what services are demanded by health tourists in the Region of Murcia, as well as the priority choice of medical and health services and benefits". For this purpose, this objective is supported by three specific objectives: To know what type of services they demand, how they are organized, what amounts they allocate economically, and the economic disbursement they make in the Region of Murcia, in terms of spending on health and welfare services, as well as the legal, juridical and documentary requirements on the part of the people in a situation of demand for such services. 3. Methodology The research methodology will be developed from a comparative system of the different service demands. After a first contact with the study phenomenon, an analysis of secondary data will be carried out. Subsequently, a questionnaire will be prepared based on other questionnaires related to the LCS, from the CIS, BOE, etc. ..... This will be followed by interviews with companies in the tourism, health and private medical sectors. The final phase of the field research will consist of 5 in-depth interviews, five with people who demand the service and another 5 with medical personnel responsible for the management of hospital and tourist centers in the sector. Subsequently, the data will be presented in three blocks: analysis of secondary data, analysis of statistical data and analysis of qualitative data using programs for this purpose. 4. Conclusions. In this thesis we planned to study the state of health and wellness tourism in the Region of Murcia in order to detect elements on which to act that would be conducive to enhancing the relevance of the sector in the regional economy. After analyzing the results of the research we can draw the following conclusions: From the above, it could be concluded that the Region of Murcia should turn its gaze inward to improve the offer, focusing on tourist profiles according to age, sex, nationality and motivations. The ultimate goal is to ensure that they have an unforgettable tourist experience, safe from a health and sustainable point of view, also facilitating the interconnection of this subsector with others such as sun and beach, cultural, gastronomic, nautical, etc. In short, the idea is to generate "à la carte" tourist packages offered from different platforms and using new technologies. In addition, both phenomena (covid-19 and Brexit) have highlighted the enormous dependence of the Region of Murcia on sun and beach tourism, and on certain issuing countries (especially Great Britain), as well as the seasonality of the sector. From this, the need to deepen in the "sale" of new sectors and tourism products to new markets arises. Researchers also warn of the need to go further in sensation tourism.A profound change is taking place towards sustainable inland tourism and under strict health safety measures. The Region of Murcia must play this trump card firmly given its wide range of spas, to which a more present and professionalized inland tourism should be added. To this end, it is also essential to increase the number of beds for rural tourism. The fact that health and wellness tourism is a term that is not clearly defined has made it very difficult to find figures representative of the situation of the sector, since both national and international studies hardly include it as a specific area. In the quantitative part of the empirical study, the small sample size to which we have had access leads us to be cautious about generalizing the results to the sector. We must point out that it was not possible to obtain a larger sample given the difficulties that the sector is going through due to the pandemic situation, but it did seem very relevant to us to be able to offer an outline of how the agents involved in this situation are experiencing the situation. In the qualitative part of the study we were also fully affected by covid-19, since we were developing the process of collecting information when the pandemic was declared. Undoubtedly, the mood and perspectives of the participants were affected by this circumstance, which also resulted in some of the interviews being shorter.