Spanish Health Resorts, Reasons For Certified In The "Q For Tourist Quality": Empirical Analysis

Health tourism is growing rapidly in recent years, positioning itself as an alternative to traditional tourism being health resorts the main representatives of this tourist segment. Health resorts like any other tourist services company should seek customer satisfaction in order to survive. In this sense, quality management becomes part of business strategy allowing health resorts to differentiate themselves and gain competitive advantages that allow them to be competitive. This paper presents the results of the empirical study conducted in 29 of the 33 health resorts nationally certified with the mark “Q for Quality Tourist”. The objective is to analyze the motivations that lead to health resorts to implement and certify the Quality Management System based on the UNE 186001:2009 (health resorts) of the mark Q for Quality Tourist. Conducted a thorough theoretical review, the methodology consists in performing a descriptive analysis of the motivations, a factor analysis in order to determine the structure of their motivations, and group health resorts in order to analyze these groups to establish the profile thereof by cluster analysis. The results show that the most important motivations that drive to the seaside health resorts to introduce a quality management system are internal motivations, differences detected in this study with findings in other academic research in industrial enterprises. The structure of motivation in this sector is made up of three groups: external market reasons, external demands reasons and internal reasons.