Cooperation between Medical and Wellness Providers in Health Tourism at Hot Spring Destinations

―Comparative Analysis between Oita and Kagoshima―

Abstract

This study compared health tourism policies, cooperation between medical and wellness providers, and the effects of prefectural policies between Oita and Kagoshima to reveal how Japanese hot spring destinations should form health tourism. Oita has been trying to promote cooperation between medical and wellness providers to prove the efficacies of health resources, however, cooperation is stagnated while Kagoshima has been creating wellness tourism products and wellness tourism promotion and tourism promotion via international medical providers coexist in Kagoshima. We suggest taking the process of experimentations on efficacies of health resources to tourism as the tourism products and promoting the internationalization of medical providers and wellness providers separately.