Demand for sanatorium and spa holidays in Russia was recorded. This is what Mikhail Danilov, medical director of the Association for Health Tourism and Corporate Health (AOT), told socialbites.ca.
“The demand for spa holidays in Russia has been increasing in recent years. The exception is the pandemic year 2020. Then the industry successfully restored its indicators and by the end of 2022 it almost reached the 2019 record year level. According to the latest Rosstat data for the first quarter of 2023, we see an increase of 15 percent compared to the same period of 2022.
According to Mikhail Danilov, this was facilitated by the general trend of a conscious attitude to health, strengthened by the epidemic. Affected argues that it is the forced diversion of tourist flows from foreign resorts to Russia, in particular to health centers.
“As many of the sanatoriums involved in AOT have stated, their target audience is getting younger every year. Today, the average age is already 48-50 and it is decreasing gradually,” he said.
Mikhail Danilov explained the rejuvenation of the audience of the sanatorium by the “increasing demand of young, economically active people to maintain physical and mental health, prolong an active life.”
“Today, modern sanatoriums, which are not inferior to good hotels in terms of comfort, can meet the demands of “health of the healthy” as well as classical spa programs. All this, combined with the natural healing factors used by every sanatorium, regardless of its region, increases the popularity of health tourism in Russia.
According to the expert, the development of preventive medicine based on sanatoriums played an important role.
Alexander Tertychny, former founder of Green Flow registered increasing demand for healing tourism among young people.