Current literature reports wellbeing travel as a rapidly increasing, profitable
international tourism sector. Wellbeing travel is positioned as an antidote to the
declining wellbeing in western societies. However, it is also reported that those
travelling for wellbeing are for the most part, already ‘healthy and wealthy’,
predominately white, middle class and female.
Partly in response to the literature, this thesis draws attention to wellbeing travel
as more than just a growing tourism sector. In a critical examination of wellbeing
travel this thesis explores how and why a small group of people are travelling for
wellbeing, and why other people are not. It is argued that non-travel is not an
indiscriminate occurrence, but a multi-faceted and sometimes deliberate process,
resulting in exclusion.