ABSTRACT
The Study on Relative Importance of Component of
Healing Tourism

Sang-suk, Jeong
Dept. of Tourism & Hotel Management
Graduate School of Industrial Engineening & Business Administration of Cheongju University
Supervised by Professor Yk-su, Lee

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore the relative importance of healing tourism components and the perceived differences about healing tourism components in respect to demographic factors. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, healing tourists visiting the arboretums (Kwang-Rung National Arboretum, the Arboretum, Seoul National University, Hanbat Arboretum in Daejeon) and the natural forest (Gaemyeongsan Natural Forest) in April 2013 were targeted as subjects. As a result, a total of 306 respondents were analysed using appropriate statistical methods.

A principle factor analysis was employed to explore the components of healing tourism. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether the components of healing tourism differed across the demographics. In conjunction with ANOVA analysis, a post hoc test using Tukey HSD was used to test the significance of healing tourism components in respect to demographics.

The results of the research are as follows.

Firstly, the healing tourism components can be identified and classified into tourism contents/purposes, and healing tourism facilities. Secondly, among the healing tourism components, the hardware part of the healing tourism facilities appears to be relatively important. Lastly, the study also indicated that the perception of healing tourism components differed in respect to demographics including age, education, monthly income and occupation.

Based on the results, this study discussed and suggested various strategic implications for the development of healing tourism products and contents.