Health Resorts: A Unique Phenomenon in the Tourist Market

The article provides a brief insight into the history and reviews the current state of the health camps and health resorts in Russia. The conclusion is drawn that over the centuries Russia has developed traditions of health and resort recreation. The author suggests that some elements of the Soviet model of the relationship between the State and health resorts be extrapolated to the modern legal ground. The paper expresses the opinion about the possibility of using the legal mechanism of health resorts self-regulation. The legal status of health resorts is considered, the spectrum of functions and services performed by them is described. The author has classified services provided into basic (medical, temporary accommodation, nutrition) and supplementary (tourist, household, entertainment, sports and recreational, trade services) services. It has been proved that the specificity of the sanatorium-resort tourist product involves the complexity of the services it includes. Their integration and merger gives a synergistic effect, which leads to an increase in the efficiency of recreation and recovery as the main goal of tourism. The paper describes the system of requirements applied to regulate the work of health camps and health resorts. The paper demonstrates the importance of health resorts, determines their place in the tourist market, dwells on the specifics of health resorts in the sphere of tourism. The author focuses on the problems and contradictions of the legal regulation of activities of health resorts, ways of their minimization. Empirically, the research is founded on statistical data and the results of the author’s questionnaires used to question different parties involved . Analysis of the results of the survey showed that most respondents do not associate health resorts with tourism. However, under Russian and international regulations, health camps and health resorts are referred to medical tourism, the main specificity of which is that it involves medical treatment. The author provides arguments in favor of the necessity of systematic work aimed to explain obvious advantages of health tourism. Attention is drawn to the role of health camps and resorts in achieving the program goals of the State.