1. Home
  2. Vol 30, No 3 (2026)
  3. Yan

Designing and marketing maternal wellness tourism destinations: insights from user-generated content

Lina Yan(1), Songyu Jiang(2), Han Wang(3),


(1) School of Culture and Tourism, Hebei Tourism College, Chengde City, 067000, China
(2) Rattanakosin International College of Creative Entrepreneurship, Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin, Nakhon Pathom 73170, Thailand
(3) Xishuangbanna Vocational and Technical College, Faculty of Teacher Traning, Jinghong City, Yunnan Province, 666100, China
Corresponding Author

Abstract


This study examines the design and marketing of maternal wellness tourism. We adopted a mixed-methods design integrating large-scale user-generated content (≈128,000 entries modeled with Latent Dirichlet Allocation) and 47 semi-structured interviews with expectant mothers; grounded theory guided coding, triangulation, and theory building. We develop a conceptual framework identifying five core dimensions: prenatal safety, psychological restoration, physical comfort, sustainable environment, and informed decision-making. The findings reveal that maternal travel is not purely for leisure but involves complex, risk-averse, and socially influenced decisions. The resulting model integrates the affective, physical, and digital aspects of the travel experience for pregnant women. Practically, it offers marketing insights for destinations, such as building trust through medical partnerships and designing trimester-specific services. The study concludes by advocating for more inclusive and care-oriented tourism planning that aligns with maternal health priorities and sustainable development goals.

References


Vespestad MK. Babymoon tourism: Co-creating well-being for traveling mothers. Journal of Travel Research. 2023;62(6):1277-1289.

Zhao J, He M. Understanding the motivation behind new mothers' choice of postpartum wellness hotels: Scale development and validation. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 2024; 121:103795.

Cheng KM. Medical tourism: Chinese maternity tourism to Hong Kong. Current Issues in Tourism. 20116;19(14):1479-1486.

Buhalis D, Leung XY, Fan D, Darcy S, Chen G, Xu F, Wei-Han Tan G, Nunkoo R, Farmaki A. Tourism 2030 and the contribution to the sustainable development goals: the tourism review viewpoint. Emerald Publishing Limited; 2023:293-313.

Venkatesh G. A Brief Analysis of SDG 3–Good Health and Well-being–and its Synergies and Trade-offs with the other Sustainable Development Goals. Problemy Ekorozwoju. 2022;17(2).

Elgin C, Elveren AY. Unpacking the economic impact of tourism: A multidimensional approach to sustainable development. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2024; 478:143947.

Prakash J, Kumari U, Singh V. Impact of prenatal tourism in mental health services in developing countries. In: Exploration of Prenatal Tourism and Birthright Citizenship. IGI Global Scientific Publishing; 2025:105-142.

Strickland P, Ratten V. Fertility tourism: A systematic review. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 2023;43(11/12):1156-1174.

Gabor MR, Oltean FD. Babymoon tourism between emotional well-being service for medical tourism and niche tourism. Development and awareness on Romanian educated women. Tourism Management. 2019; 70:170-175.

Zhang X, Liu X, Wang Y, Zhou L, Cheng X. Sustainable development of China’s maternity insurance system in the context of population policy changes: using a grounded theory approach. Sustainability. 2022;14(4):2138.

Shen X, Qu Y, Wu Q. Assessing the risks of China’s medical tourism from the legal perspective. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy. 2020:2291-2299.

Zong Z, Huang J, Sun X, Mao J, Shu X, Hearst N. Prenatal care among rural to urban migrant women in China. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. 2018;18(1):301.

Gao Y, Zhou H, Singh NS, Powell-Jackson T, Nash S, Yang M, Guo S, Fang H, Alvarez MM, Liu X, Pan J. Progress and challenges in maternal health in western China: a Countdown to 2015 national case study. The Lancet Global Health. 2017;5(5):e523-e536.

Gan T, Zheng J, Li W, Li J, Shen J. Health and wellness tourists’ motivation and behavior intention: The role of perceived value. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2023;20(5):4339.

Karn S, Kumar S. A theoretical framework for wellness tourism motivation factors. Contemporary Research and Practices in Tourism and Hospitality-With Special Focus on Accessibility. 2021:214-223.

Vargo SL, Lusch RF. Service-dominant logic: continuing the evolution. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 2008;36(1):1-10.

Barney J. Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management. 1991;17(1):99-120.

Theerathitichaipa K, Seefong M, Prasomsab P, Wisutwattanasak P, Banyong C, Ratanavaraha V, Jansirisuk N, Ariyarit A, Kasemsri R. Exploring Determinants of Wellness Tourism and Behavioral Intentions: An SEM-Based Study of Holistic Health. Sustainability. 2025.

Zhang R. Exploring the phenomenon of Chinese babymoon tourism. 2015.

Zhang Q, Zhang H, Xu H. Health tourism destinations as therapeutic landscapes: Understanding the health perceptions of senior seasonal migrants. Social Science & Medicine. 2021; 279:113951.

Jaramillo J, Goyal D, Lung C. Birth tourism among Chinese women. MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing. 2019;44(2):94-99.

Su X, Zhang Y, Chen M, Xu X, Liu G. Understanding health education needs of pregnant women in China during public health emergencies: a qualitative study amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Public Health. 2024; 12:1271327.

Mikulić J, Baumgärtner RM. Google Trends and Baidu index data in tourism demand forecasting: A critical assessment of recent applications. Tourism Management. 2025; 110:105164.

Liu G, Pinoli P, Ceri S, Pierri F. A comparison of online search engine autocompletion in Google and Baidu. arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.01917. 2024.

Henderi H, Hayadi BH, Sofiana S, Padeli P, Setiyadi D. Unsupervised Learning Methods for Topic

Extraction and Modeling in Large-scale Text Corpora using LSA and LDA. Journal of Applied Data Sciences. 2023;4(3):103-118.

Glaser BG, Strauss AL. Grounded theory. Strategien Qualitativer Forschung. Bern: Huber; 1998:4.

Strauss A, Corbin J. Basics of qualitative research techniques. 1998.

Dini M, Pencarelli T. Wellness tourism and the components of its offer system: a holistic perspective. Tourism Review. 2022;77(2):394-412.

Liao C, Zuo Y, Xu S, Law R, Zhang M. Dimensions of the health benefits of wellness tourism: A review. Frontiers in Psychology. 2023; 13:1071578.

Laureate, C. D. P., Buntine, W., & Linger, H. (2023). A systematic review of the use of topic models for short text social media analysis. Artificial Intelligence Review, 56, 14223–14255. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-023-10471-x

Gan, T., Zheng, J., Li, W., Li, J., & Shen, J. (2023). Health and wellness tourists’ motivation and behavior intention: The role of perceived value. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(5), 4339. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20054339


Full Text: PDF

Article Metrics

Abstract View : 268 times
PDF Download : 149 times

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.