If you combine the multiple health benefits of a low intensity sporting activity with the multiple wellness benefits of an Alpine environment and then add a range of unique spa experiences, high quality, nutritional local food and five-star hotels with impeccable service standards, do you create the optimum well-being tourism destination? Probably, and, if so, then the Austrian resort of Kitzbühel is, without doubt, one of the world's leading examples of how this can be achieved.In 2007 and 2008, the town of Kitzbühel, together with its three other communities, Reith, Aurach and Jochberg, that make up the destination, welcomed 1.39 million tourists, a 16.3 percent increase on the previous year. Summer tourist numbers increased by 26 percent to a total over 466,000, or 34 percent of the annual total.Kitzbühel Tourism is the destination's strategic marketing and management organization which has led its branding and positioning over the years including the emphasis of today, which is creating a year-round destination with traditional winter and a new range of summer sports, including golf, walking, cycling and tennis.The development of walking, jogging trails and a summer sports events programme by Kitzbühel Tourism combined with the significant private sector investment in five-star hotels with spa product and golf courses, have been major contributors to this success story.
Today the destination boasts 29 4-star and 5-star hotels with over 3,000 bedrooms, some 45 percent of the total beds.� The headlines of 2008 were the opening of the Grand Spa Resort A'Rosa and the refurbishment of the Hotel Schloss Lebenberg. This summer will see the opening in Aurach of the 40 million Golf and Ski Resort Grand Tirolia with spa and the impressive Eichenheim golf course, together with the Hotel Royal Spa in Jochberg. Close by is the remarkable Bio-Hotel Stanglwirt owned and managed by the Hauser family.Austria now has 120 golf courses with 30 being within a 60-minute drive of Kitzbühel and seven within the destination itself. Many of these gold courses are gaining an enviable reputation for their clever design and extraordinary Alpine setting.If you combine golf, alpine scenery, with 5-star accommodation, spas and service in Kitzbühel, you can create the optimum well-being destination.
The internationally renowned mountain destination of Kitzbühel in Tirol, Austria has been a favoured winter sports resort often linked with the rich and famous, for over 150 years. This destination, of some 12,000 residents, is located 140 km south of Munich and 80 km halfway from Innsbruck to the west and Salzburg to the east.In 2009 the World Economic Forum's Global Tourism Competitive Index ranked Austria second after Switzerland, in terms of its overall quality and economic performance of its tourism industry. This represents a significant success story over the past ten years. In the late 1990s, the tourism industry in Austria was failing, there was little investment in new product and the value of tourism was in decline. Part of this success has been due to the vision and strategy that has placed wellness at the heart of tourism development. Part of the success is due to the innovation, determination and drive of leading destinations such as Kitzbühel.
In the mid to late 19th Century, many of the famous Alpine tourism resorts began as health centres for invalids, especially those suffering from Tuberculosis (Bacillus tuberculosis). Initially, the treatments for the disease were milk cures, requiring drinking milk straight from the cows that had grazed on the Alpine herbs and grasses. In her book, Healthy Living in the Alps 1860-1914, Susan Barton describes how patients were subjected to the cowshed treatment, where their infected lungs were soothed by the warm vapours of animal breath and the gases, such as ammonia, from bovine urine.Later in the century, the new field of medial climatology believed that tuberculosis bacilli did not prosper in the thin, dry, pollution-free air and the high altitude sunshine prevalent in the Alps. As a result, doctors began to prescribe climate holidays to the Alps and built sanatoria offering heliotherapy cures generally involving resting on south-facing balconies. It was these doctors and their patients who first introduced tobogganing, curling and skiing as winter pastimes that gave rise to the winter sports phenomenon and the emergence of these resorts for healthy, adventure-seeking tourists.
The Austrian Alps are located at the heart of the European Alpine mountain system covering some 1,200 km from France in the west to Slovenia in the east, embracing eight countries.Today, it is estimated that some 40 million people a year visit the European Alps for winter and summer tourism, 25 percent or 10 million of whom visit the Austrian Alps.The primary Austrian Alpine remedies are:Water: mineral poor or soft water is good for skin ailments and for sensitive skin benefiting those suffering from dermatitis or neurodermatitis;
In 2004, the Network Alpine Wellness Tirol, established in 2001, recognizing these authentic remedies identified the following basis health benefits associated with a holiday in the Austrian Alps:
In his foreword to Wellbeing: A Guide to Wellness and Health in Austria, Dr Arthur Oberascher of the Austrian National Tourist Board, highlights the importance of viewing wellness in its widest sense. He emphasises the importance of the naturally occurring spa waters, Alpine air and an environment that encourages activity, whilst ensuring recovery from stress. The Austrian wellness approach is reflected in the Feel Good in Austria promotion involving over 50 hotels.
This consortium has established five pillars of its philosophy, which include healthy cuisine, fitness as fun, relaxation, beauty care and personal service.This holistic approach to health and health tourism is the embodiment of the wellness concept developed by the American physician Halbert Dunn in 1959. It is seen as a way of implementing the World Health Organisation's current definition of health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".Wellness is a combination of wellbeing and fitness and recognizes the importance of lifestyle as a key driver by integrating fitness, diet, beauty, soul and mind.Austria's wellness tourism initiatives are especially well geared to meet the rapidly emerging international demand for this holistic approach. There has been a remarkable response from both individual hotel operators who have moved swiftly to invest in spas, recreation and health facilities and Alpine destinations.The strategy has been underpinned with rigorous research to demonstrate the health benefits of vacations in the mountains. The concept is referred to as "Alpine wellness", which the Austrian's are now calling welltain.
The organization Alpine Wellness was founded by the tourism organizations of Bavaria, Switzerland, Südtirol/Alto Adige, and by the association Alpine Wellness Österreich, consisting of the tourism organizations of Vorarlberg, Tirol, Salzburg, Carinthia, Styria, and upper Austria. Alpine Wellness Österreich is also a founding member of Best Health Austria. Its goal is to be among the leading brands in European wellness and health tourism within five years and to bundle effectively the offer in this sector in the Alpine region.The recent Austrian Moderate Altitude Study 2000 (AMAS 2000) commenced with altitudes up to 2,000 meters examined for their health benefits. A pilot study took place in Lech am Arlberg that clearly demonstrated these health benefits gained from a wellness approach in the mountains.The Austrian National Tourist Board's excellent guide to wellbeing identifies wellbeing themes for each of its nine provinces:
Playing golf is not only good physical exercise but it also releases powerful, natural, mood enhancing endorphins into the bloodstream and, because the exercise takes place outdoors its health benefits are enhanced by what is known as the biophile effect.There are various quantifiable measures of the health value of a game of golf, ranging from its equivalence to a 45-minute rigorous work out in the gym to the fact that up to 1,000 calories can be burned in walking a golf course carrying a bag of clubs.The main health benefits from golf are:
The health benefits of a spa and the various treatments are well documented and evidenced. They are not repeated here. However, in Austria there is a strong emphasis upon using treatments made from local herbs and using local water, both geothermal and spring, to enhance these wellness values.There is also a presumption within Kitzbühel's hotels for using local food and drink, placing a strong emphasis upon healthy, nutritional diets.Austria's reputation for high quality service standards is evidenced in Kitzbühel's hotels and restaurants. Invariably, this is combined with the use of local building materials in the design or tourist facilities and a celebration of local culture to reinforce a strong sense of place.These factors combine to create a unique synergy of feel-good factors that are focused in a world-class destination where the overall feeling of wellbeing is richly enhanced by all dimensions of the history and heritage of Kitzbühel.
The combination of world-class activities and facilities, products and services working together in one destination has produced a wellbeing and health tourism experience that is profound, innovative and of the highest quality. It is clearly a formula that works for the guest and for the destination.Testimony of the completeness of the wellness and feel-good experience in Kitzbühel is how easy it is to become assimilated, to relax and be part of this Alpine environment. It is an equation that works for optimum health benefits. The formula is simple:Σ (AC + AM + QH + SPA + GE + NF + A) x KS = HT3ACAustrian CultureAEAlpine EnvironmentQH World Class Quality HospitalitySPA Spa using local treatmentsGE Golf Exercise on Alpine CoursesNFNutritional Local FoodA Atmosphere / Sense of PlaceKS Kitzbühel StyleHT World Class Health and Wellness Tourism
