A model for spa tourism development

Tourism is critical to the Egyptian economy and spa tourism has been identified as a critical element in diversification of the Egyptian tourism product that is heavily reliant on cultural tourism and particularly focuses on its unique tourism resources - the Pyramids and other monuments, The thesis aims to develop a model of spa tourism development that is translated into a spa tourism development checklist.
 

The thesis opens with an extant literature on spa industry in terms of its history, current status and implications of the wellness agenda on the spa industry. It then discusses tourism planning and in both linear and non-linear approaches. It then moves on to discuss resort planning and specifically spa tourism and spa tourism resort planning. The literature review concludes with the development of a unified model of the critical success factors for spa tourism development.
 

The methodological epistemological and theoretical approach of the research is discussed in chapter three and focuses on the selection of key case studies of spa tourism projects, from which critical success factors can be drawn. The cases selected are of the Bath Spa Project in the United Kingdom and Pharaoh's Baths Spa Project in Egypt.
 

The thesis then moves on to discuss tourism in Egypt and goes on to explore spa tourism in Egypt and the governmental policies regarding this type of tourism. It then goes on to explore the spa market in Egypt through two examples of successful spas. The case study of Pharaoh's Baths Spa Project is then discussed and the chapter concludes with identifying a contradiction between the policy and the market in Egypt and draws some critical factors to inform the model and checklist.
 

Bath Spa Project is then discussed and critical success factors are pulled out of it, The critical success factors identified in both case studies are built into the unified model developed from the literature review and from this a checklist of key issues is developed. The validity and generalisability of the model and checklist are then tested through a carefully selected expert panel, which was unanimously on the soundness of the model and checklist. Comments received from the expert panel were used to produce the final revised versions of the model and checklist.