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Tourism: SPA market in Romania, business of 7.7 million euros in 2015
SPA market in Romania has a low level compared to European countries, the business figure did not exceed 7.7 million euros at 2015 level because Romanians are not educated to “consume” prevention and relaxation therapies and in the tourism law there is no definition of SPA.
“We could speak about a SPA market in Romania ten years ago, but the first SPA location appeared 7 years ago. Real SPA centres are very few, about 40 in the whole country, including hotel spas. The market grew by 5-6% between 2012 and 2014, from 6.2 million euros to 6.9 million euros, but in 2015 the increase was 12%, to 7.7 million euros. It is still very little, but the figures include only spa therapies of relaxation and prevention, without losing weight or fitness therapies. If we include those too, we are dealing with different figures. I consider that we will have at least a similar increase in 2016, but we will know figures in May,” said Ioana Marian, ambassador at Global Wellness Day in Romania, founder and general manager of a reference platform in the spa and wellness field.
According to the source, one of the reasons why there are no spa centres in Romania is that there is not a definition of s[a, which does not allow setting up schools in this field with real development potential.
The evolution of the number of Romanian and foreign customers in the spa market grew from 140,000 in 2012 to 160,500 in 2015, the share of foreigners being less than 20,000. While in 2012-2014 a Romania spent an average of 150 lei for spa treatments, in 2015 the amount grew to 160 lei and the number of treatments reached 212,000.
As for the number of foreign tourists interested in such therapies, only 15,300 foreign tourists out of over two millions who spent more than a night in Romania had spa treatments in 2015. Of them over 80% came for business and stayed for several weeks, a study shows.
According to Global Wellness Institute (GWI) made in 2016, world wellness tourism generated 563 billion dollars in 2015, on the rise by 28% compared to 439 billion dollars registered in 2013, but estimates show that in 2020 there will be 808 billion dollars.
According to the study, thermal and mineral waters industry was worth 51 billion dollars in 2015, but 20,300 thermal centres which had no spa centre had incomes of 18 billion dollars in the same year, while 7,000 which had spa centres obtained 32 billion dollars.