With the upgrading of global cultural, tourism and health needs, the traditional hot spring vacation model is undergoing global iteration. Equipping hot spring hotels with sauna, steam therapy and other thermal health projects has evolved from a value-added service to a core consideration for tourists, becoming a new must-have for cross-border consumption. According to data from STR, a global hotel industry research firm, in the major markets of Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America, hot spring hotels with complete thermal health experiences have seen an average increase of 2.5-3 hours in tourists' stay time and an average 38% rise in repurchase rate, with the North American market reaching as high as 45%.
"Now when choosing a hot spring hotel, I will first check if there are sauna or steam therapy facilities. After soaking in the hot spring, steaming makes me completely relieve fatigue," said Emily White, an American tourist, echoing the voices of global consumers. Currently, almost all world-renowned hot spring resorts such as Hakone in Japan, Pamukkale in Turkey and Rovaniemi in Finland have included saunas and steam therapy as core facilities, with various themed types accurately meeting different needs.
The reason why this "golden combination" has swept the world lies in its ability to balance common health needs and regional cultural differences. From a health perspective, hot springs and thermal health form a complementary closed loop, accurately matching the relaxation and health needs of cross-regional travel; from a business perspective, it can extend tourists' stay time and drive secondary consumption, becoming a consensus choice for global hot spring hotels to increase revenue.
Hot spring hotels in different regions have created differentiated characteristics by integrating local resources. Hotels in Hakone, Japan have connected Japanese-style saunas with hot springs, increasing the proportion of international tourists from 45% to 62%; Pamukkale in Turkey has launched salt therapy saunas based on local salt resources; hotels in California, North America have empowered sauna experiences with intelligent equipment to meet local needs for convenient health care.
In-depth global cultural and tourism integration has further amplified the value of this model, promoting the in-depth integration of culture and health scenarios. Finland's aurora-viewing saunas, Thailand's tropical herbal steam therapy, and South Korea's jjimjilbang vacation closed loop have jointly formed a diverse ecology of global hot spring health tourism, making "hot spring + thermal health" a carrier of cultural communication.
Industry data confirms the sustainability of this trend. In 2024, 81% of global hot spring hotels were equipped with thermal health projects, with 85% in Asia-Pacific, 78% in Europe and 72% in North America respectively; the revenue share of related services averaged 21%, exceeding 30% in countries such as South Korea and Japan. The International Federation of Spa and Tourism pointed out that balancing local characteristics with cross-regional service standards will be the key to industry competition in the future.
The development of the global market has promoted the collaborative upgrading of supervision, forming a regulatory system of "global general standards + regional characteristic norms". Insiders remind that when choosing services across regions, consumers should prioritize standardized stores and consider their own physical conditions; hotels need to balance global standards with local culture to meet cross-border needs.
