Aut Aut Research Journal ISSN NO: 0005-0601

HEALTH AND WELLNESS FOCUS OF IN NORTH INDIA

Siddharth Bedi Chitkara College Of Hospitality Management, Chitkara University, Punjab, India

Dr.Vinay Chamoli Maharaja Agrasen University, Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

Hospitality industry of late has started focusing more on Health and Wellness of the visitors along with the entertainment or sightseeing etc. People are getting more and more conscious about health and Wellness primarily because of hectic schedules at workplaces, stress full working, rising medical expenses and troubled work life balance. Now people look for and Hospitality as ideal medium of rejuvenating their lives. In such a scenario, it becomes important for hotels to offer what is being expected out of them. Going by this theme, a survey of hotels has been conducted in North India across 7 selected cities. A total of 21 hotels have been taken as sample. Results have indicated that hotels in North India are still focussing more on physical fitness or physical health and mental Wellness does not enjoy much space in their product or service bouquet. Hence there is a need to identify various activities which can contribute to health and Wellness of visitors for hotels.

Volume XI, Issue XI, November/2020 Page No:312

Aut Aut Research Journal ISSN NO: 0005-0601

Keywords:

Health, wellness, tourism, industry & Safety measures.

Introduction

21st century has brought many changes to the lives of people. Year 2020 year has been full of challenges to the race of mankind in terms of suffering from covid-19 and stressful lives due to lock down globally. This has also made people think about health and wellness. Earlier also, due to disturb work-life balance and increasing tensions, people were concerned about health and well-being. Western countries had already got the pulse of these trends and started working on changing product and service bouquet to suit such expectations of people. Particularly has responded well to health and Wellness concerns of their visitors.

New innovative products and services were introduced by hotels to make people feel that their stay would be full of health, Wellness and rejuvenation. The sentiment was conveyed that Hotel respects the concern for health Expectations of visitors. However, when it comes to India, our hotel industry has not been that much proactive and still many hotels have conventional products and services to offer. Nothing much has been changed in their offerings while they were expected to change with the times. Primarily thus is the reason the current study has been undertaken.

Conceptual Framework

The contemporary times are rightly said to be the times of Health and Wellness. Whether it is physical or mental health, the concern has increased manifold. More and more attention is being paid to health and wellness by all the businesses. Halbert Dunn (1961) defined Wellness as “an integrated method of functioning which is oriented to maximizing the potential of which an individual is capable, within theenvironment where he is functioning”. Chen et al. (2015) conceptualize health and Wellness as “It goes beyond freedom from disease or infirmity and emphasizes the proactive maintenance and improvement of health and well-being”. These definitions clearly indicate the concern of the world for health and Wellness in Modern Times. In such a scenario, event tourism and hospitality sector has also the responsibility to participate and contribute in health and Wellness movement.

Volume XI, Issue XI, November/2020 Page No:313

Aut Aut Research Journal ISSN NO: 0005-0601

Hotel and tourism industry is no more confined to people visiting a new geographical place, enjoying and shelling money. As per Voigt (2010), many factors like fast pace of routine life, increased stress level and ever-increasing medical Costs have contributed to the concern for health and Wellness. People now look for tourist sites also from the angle of health and wellness. Voigt, Brown, & Howat (2011) set the primary goal of Wellness tourism as the pursuit of attaining, maintaining as well as reinforcing various dimensions of health and well- being like physical, mental, spiritual and psychological. Chen et al. (2015) extended the concept of Wellness tourism as discussed earlier. They argued that wellness tourism also includes meal and nutrition dietary as a significant component as people nowadays are looking for healthy and nutritious food in daily life.

As it is clear that wellness tourism has now become an inseparable part of overall tourism industry. In such a scenario, hospitality industry cannot remain untouched to this development. The concept of Wellness has been introduced and followed up by many hotels across the globe. Camillo (2015) as observed that tourist are now having a definite concern for health and Wellness and they have incorporated it in their quality lifestyle. This is resulting in the demand of health and Wellness facilities at the level of hospitality and typically in case of hotels also. Scott (2017) observe that hotels are now adding ultra-modern fitness equipment to attract wellness focused customers. Author illustrated the example of Hilton Hotel which has introduced a rather new and Revolutionary concept of in-room Wellness in which many of the health and Wellness products and facilities are available within the room itself. Room key PMS (2018) suggested the example of MGM Grand Hotel and casino in Las Vegas which has introduced about 171 rules which are said to be Stay Well rooms. These rooms include many Wellness features like blackout shades, vitamin infused shower water and protection from electromagnetic fields with minor extra cost.

Objectives

Primary objective of the study is to assess the focus of hotels in North India with regard to health and Wellness of visitors. This has to be achieved by browsing the products and services offered by these hotels to visitors. Apart from this, effort has also been made to compare different cities in North India on the basis of Health and Wellness focus of hotels located in the cities.

Volume XI, Issue XI, November/2020 Page No:314

Aut Aut Research Journal ISSN NO: 0005-0601

Measurement of Health and Well-being Facilities in Hotels

Empirically, many researchers have contributed to measurement of Health and Wellness through scale development and validation. But few studies have targeted hotel for health and Wellness measurement. Mueller and kaufmann (2001) developed wellness tourism and Hospitality model which focuses on various dimensions of Wellness like health, mental Wellness, physical fitness, body relaxation, and environmental sensitivity. This model has been extensively used to measure the Wellness focus of hotels worldwide.

They defined Wellness Hotel as the hotel whose main purpose is to promote health and healthy lifestyle and which offers multiple services which meet the demand for physical mental psychological health of visitors and provides wellness oriented environment in the hotel. Latest contribution in such measurement has been from Chi, Christina & Chi, Oscar & Ouyang, Zhe. (2019) who developed the scale for Wellness hotel covering three major dimensions viz. Physical Wellness, mind Wellness and environmental Wellness (Figure-1). This study largely relies on the same model for measurement of Health and Wellness focus of selected hotels.

Figure-1: Wellness Hotel Dimensions

Research Methodology

For the conduct of study, 7 cities from north India. These cities include Delhi, Chandigarh, Shimla, Amritsar, Srinagar, Jaipur, and Gurugram. These Cities also represent various states like Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, and Haryana. Further, for

Volume XI, Issue XI, November/2020 Page No:315

Aut Aut Research Journal ISSN NO: 0005-0601

the selection of hotels, three popular websites which act as rating as well as booking websites for hotels were accessed. These websites included Make My Trip (www.makemytrip.com), Go Ibibo (https://www.goibibo.com/hotels/) and OYO Rooms (www.oyorooms.com). With the help of these websites, various 4 and 5 star hotels were noted down. As final sample, top 3 hotels from each city were selected based on ranking assigned by visitors. Table 1 shows the list of cities and three Hotel selected from each city in the sample.

Table-1: Sample Cities and Hotels

City Hotel-1 Hotel-2 Hotel-3 Delhi Andaz-Hyatt Radisson Blu Plaza Taj Palace Chandigarh Hyatt Regency Taj Hotel JW Marriott Shimla Radisson Jass The Grand Welcome Willow Banks Amritsar Radisson Blu Taj Swarna Welcom Hotel Srinagar Radisson The Grand Mamta RK Sarovar Portico Jaipur Trident Radisson The OberoiRajvilas Gurugram Radisson Taj City Centre Hyatt Regency

At next stage, for the purpose of measurement of health and wellness focus of selected hotels, various Wellness products and Wellness activities or services were identified. These were for the divided into three dimensions based on their nature. Table 2 presents the Final index of Wellness activities based on which the measurement of Wellness score has been made.

Table-2: Index of Wellness Activities

Wellness Product/Activity Wellness Area No Smoking Rooms Environment Natural Green Lawns Environment Sun Deck Environment/Mind Art/Drawing Facilities Mind Concierge Service Mind Campfire/Bonfire Mind Physical Fitness/Workout Stations Physical Spa/Sauna Physical Cycling/Mountaineering/Kayaking Physical

Volume XI, Issue XI, November/2020 Page No:316

Aut Aut Research Journal ISSN NO: 0005-0601

Sports Equipment Physical Swimming Pools Physical Healthy Food and Beverage Selection Physical Collaboration with Wellness/Fitness Brands Physical Collaboration with Medical Clinics Physical Massage Centre Physical /Meditation Facilities Physical/Mind Children Activities/Games Physical/Mind

Finally, the data was ordered using binary coding methodology. Websites of all the 21 hotels were browsed and various health and Wellness products or services offered by these hotels to visitors were noted down. Following binary coding, any health and Wellness product or service offered by any particular Hotel was marked as 1 while the absence of such product or service was marked as zero. Thereafter total score of each hotel was calculated for physical Wellness, mind Wellness, environment Wellness and then total Wellness.

Data Analysis

Table 3 shows the compiled data and performance of selected cities in relation to health and Wellness products or services offered by Hotels falling in these cities. For physical Wellness, around 50% of the total items from the index of wellbeing has been offered by hotels on average. In case of Mind Wellness, the performance of all hotels have been low. Hotels tend to offer around 35% of index activities or products on an average to the visitors. In case of environmental Wellness, a huge variation is visible and hotels differentiate from each other heavily with regard to offering environmental Wellness based products or services. Briefly, it can be set that the overall focus of hotels in North India has been on the physical fitness and environmental well-being while, mental well-being has been ignored.

Afterwards, city wise comparison has been made. It can be observed that in case of physical Wellness, Chandigarh, Jaipur and Gurugram had been at the top position followed closely by Delhi and Srinagar. However, hotels located in cities like Amritsar and Shimla have been performing in low as compared to their counterparts in other cities. In case of Mind Wellness,

Volume XI, Issue XI, November/2020 Page No:317

Aut Aut Research Journal ISSN NO: 0005-0601

hotels located in Delhi and Gurugram have been at the top position followed by those in Shimla and Srinagar. Hotels located in Chandigarh, Amritsar and Jaipur have been on the lower side with regard to offering mind Wellness products or services in hotels. Finally in case of environmental Wellness, the performance of hotels in Delhi has been exceptional.

Table-3: Health and Well-Being Focus of Hotels in Selected Cities

Physical Wellness Mind Wellness Environmental Total Wellness Percentage Percentage Wellness Percentage Percentage City Mean Mean Mean Mean Delhi 54.55% 44.44% 77.78% 58.92% Chandigarh 57.58% 27.78% 33.33% 39.56% Shimla 39.39% 38.89% 33.33% 37.21% Amritsar 45.45% 27.78% 55.56% 42.93% Srinagar 54.55% 38.89% 55.56% 49.66% Jaipur 57.58% 27.78% 44.44% 43.27% Gurugram 57.58% 44.44% 55.56% 52.53% Overall Average 52.38% 35.71% 50.79% 46.30%

Thereafter, hotels in Amritsar Srinagar and Gurugram have been doing reasonably well. Finally hotels in Chandigarh Shimla and Jaipur have been on the lower side. As far as total Wellness performance is concerned, hotels located in Delhi have been at the top followed by hotels in Gurugram. In case of these two cities, more than 50% of the items given in Wellness index have been offered by hotels. Director hotels in Amritsar Srinagar and Jaipur have offered at least 40% of the Wellness products or services to visitors. Hotels in Chandigarh and Shimla have been lagging behind other hotels. In their case, less than 40% of the index items have been offered to visitors. Thus, there definitely lies a scope of improvement for hotels in these two cities.

In order to find the significance of difference of performance as depicted by table 3 across selected cities, analysis of variance (ANOVA) has been put into use. Null hypothesis for this test has been that there is no significant difference among 7 selected cities in relation to their hotel performance of wellness.

Volume XI, Issue XI, November/2020 Page No:318

Aut Aut Research Journal ISSN NO: 0005-0601

Table-4: Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Physical Between Groups 920.897 6 153.483 .672 .674

Wellness Within Groups 3195.592 14 228.257 Percentage Total 4116.490 20

Mind Wellness Between Groups 1084.656 6 180.776 .248 .952

Percentage Within Groups 10185.185 14 727.513

Total 11269.841 20

Environmental Between Groups 4338.624 6 723.104 1.242 .343

Wellness Within Groups 8148.148 14 582.011 Percentage Total 12486.772 20

Total Wellness Between Groups 1074.210 6 179.035 .590 .734

Percentage Within Groups 4251.437 14 303.674

Total 5325.647 20

As shown by table 4, f-value has been calculated separately for physical Wellness, mind Wellness, environmental Wellness and then overall Wellness. Results indicate that f value has been in significant in all the four cases. Hence, null hypothesis assuming no significant difference among 7 selected cities in relation to their hotel performance of wellness stands accepted. It can be claimed that all hotels in North India perform nearly similar to each other. And their overall Wellness offerings do not differ significantly.

Conclusion Undoubtedly, health and Wellness have been the topic of discussion of everyday life of all of us. Concern for health and Wellness has affected every industry be it food production, tourism or hospitality. Worldwide, hotels are now taking conscious decisions about their product offerings or services. Health and Wellness are becoming more a part of bouquet of services offered by these hotels. However, the survey has clearly shown that hotels located in North India are still confining themselves to physical fitness and the concern for mind Wellness is still pending. Survey was based on four and five star hotels only. It can be easily guessed that hotels with 1, 2 or 3 stars might be fairing even badly. Keeping in mind the Global trends, hotels in India should increase the health and Wellness focus. There should be more items in the bouquet of services to be truly termed as health and Wellness focused hotel.

Volume XI, Issue XI, November/2020 Page No:319

Aut Aut Research Journal ISSN NO: 0005-0601

References

 Camillo, A. A. (Ed.). (2015). Handbook of research on global hospitality and tourism management. IGI Global.  Chen, K. H., Chang, F. H., & Liu, F. Y. (2015). Wellness tourism among seniors in Taiwan: Previous experience, service encounter expectations, organizational characteristics, employee characteristics, and customer satisfaction. Sustainability, 7(8), 10576-10601.  Chi, Christina & Chi, Oscar & Ouyang, Zhe.(2019). Wellness hotel: Conceptualization, scale development, and validation. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 102404. 10.1016/j.ijhm.2019.102404.  Halbert Dunn, (1961) Program and participants, third annual meeting; chair, preventive psychiatry. J. Am. Assoc. Soc. Psychiatr. Vol. 2, 333–334.  Mueller, H.; Lanz Kaufmann, E. (2001): Wellness Tourism: Market analysisof a special health tourism segment and implications for the hotel industry,Journal of Marketing, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.5-17.  Room key PMS. (2018). Health and Wellness Trends in the Hospitality Industry. Retrieved from https://roomkeypms.com/blog/health-and-wellnesstrends-in-the- hospitality-industry/  Scott, A. (2017). Hilton Launches Revolutionary New Guest Room, Five Feet to Fitness™. Retrieved from http://newsroom.hilton.com/index.cfm/news/hilton- launches-revolutionary-newguest-room-five-feet-to-fitness  Voigt, C. (2010). Understanding wellness tourism: An analysis of benefits sought, healthpromoting behaviours and positive psychological well-being (Doctoral dissertation, University of South Australia). Retrieved from http://search.ror.unisa.edu.au/record/UNISA_ALMA51112407540001831/media/digit al/open/9915960272201831/12146634460001831/13146630770001831/pdf 45  Voigt,C.,Brown,G,& Howat,G (2011). Wellness tourists: In search of transformation. Tourism Review, 66(1/2), 16–30.

Volume XI, Issue XI, November/2020 Page No:320