ABSTRACT
The increasing popularity of the wellness concept in Europe since the 1990s shows that the European leisure and health resorts have entered the global market. After the eras of Roman thermae and European (national) spas, the European leisure and health system entered an era of leisure-based global health and wellness centers after the fall of the iron curtain in 1989. Wellness represents a new global approach to health and stimulates a more leisure-based health concept as well as the development of a new health-oriented leisure system. Wellness hotels and health tourism started this process; gyms, saunas, fun pools, and wellness centers followed and are still following. Traditional health resorts such as spas and hospitals fell into a crisis and therefore need to modernize their concepts. The wellness approach initiated a process of globalization which can be seen and used as an opportunity for the innovation and modernization of the European leisure and health resorts, spas, and tourism destinations.
