Abstract

Wellness tourism provides the visitor with a range of activities and/ or treatments which are aimed at developing, maintaining and improving the body-mind-spirit; it covers the broadest scope of engagement: ranging from weekend hotel-Spa (salus per aquam) breaks that include massage treatments, to intensive month-long yoga and spiritual retreats. The proliferation of wellness centres, holistic retreats, Spas, spiritual pilgrimages, complementary and alternative therapies is nowadays unprecedented. Nevertheless, the analysis of the economics and management of the wellness sector is scarce. This work aims to fill this gap, analysing in details a special type of emergent segment of wellness tourism in Italy: the agri-Spa. Our paper investigates this phenomenon providing an interesting picture of the agri-Spa business in Italy. Our arguments are supported by an empirical analysis based on data coming from a sample of 1572 firms operating in 2010 in Italy.