An Initial Survey of Experience Activities for Health and Wellness Tourism: A Case of Qionglu Scenic Area, Xichang City, Sichuan Province

Abstract

Our country’s economy and society continue to develop. With the popularization of national education and the growth of per capita annual income, the people are paying more and more attention to experience situations, and the tourism industry has entered the era of experience economy. In addition, at the end of 2019, my country's population over 65 years old accounted for 11.4%, and the 60-year-old retired group accounted for 18.1% (approximately 253 million people). In fact, it has entered an aging society, and the demand for health tourism has become more intense. Therefore, the citizens' demand for experience and health tourism has become more obvious. How to meet the development needs of health and wellnesstourism under the background of experience economy is an extremely important research topic. The research purpose of this article is to explore the problems of health and wellness tourism experience projects from the perspective of experience marketing, and put forward corresponding suggestions. This study uses the well-known tourist destination in Panxi, China: Qionglu Scenic Area, XichangCity, Sichuan Province, to interview local tourists through in-depth interviews. A total of 20 effective interview samples are obtained and analyzed by content analysis. The results of the analysis show that the respondents’ perception of health and wellnesstourism is mostly to promote health tourism, which roughly conforms to the definition of health and wellness tourism. Secondly, in terms of health and wellness tourism experience activities, respondents prefer catering activities, and focus on mountain and water experience activities. Therefore, this research suggests that destination managers and operators should make good use of local natural resources and cultural characteristics of the Yi ethnic group, focus on developing mountain and water experience projects, highlight ethnic minority dining and cultural characteristics, and meet consumer health and tourism needs.