Spas, Health and Wellness Tourism
10.3 Hydrotherapy as a Resource for Health and Wellness
The hydrotherapy, in the form of treatment and leisure through the waters, is a medi- cine which is in memory of the times. In antiquity, have been the Greeks and Romans but also the Turks who began by paying more attention to the hot springs and its prerogatives. We were at a time when prevailing interpretation of a super- natural disease, which form of punishment of the gods who came down on humans.
Hence the abundance of cults and myths, one of them associated to the miraculous powers of the thermal waters. If water symbolizes life, that they are meteoric and sprout hot and sulphurous earth, also contributes to these interpretations. We empha- size that the whole place of pilgrimage from different religions suffered from its aquifers centers and their sources and not by accident that many pilgrims resort to these waters to purify and heal.
These were people who brought us to these discoveries and cultural practices.
Around the springs of thermal water were being built buildings safeguarding the designated spa or tails, which were making in development focuses hydrotherapy, towns and cities and other social infrastructure. The water, and more specifi cally natural mineral water, appears therefore, an integrator and structuring element of people and spaces due to have entered the life of the people, for centuries, as a component thereof.
The symbolic signifi cance of water fall into three dominant themes: the source of life, a means of purifi cation, center regency. Undifferentiated mass and free water is a plethora of potential. As a primary condition of life, contains all virtues and prom- ises of development alongside threats of resorption. It is presented as a symbol of cosmogony. Having the ability to cleanse, heal and rejuvenate introduces in eternity, even an earthly eternity with both you dream these days (Leandro 2014 ).
Emerge in the waters to leave them without fully dissolve except for a symbolic death, is returning to the sources; remake itself into an immense reservoir of great potential and then go look for new forces is inherent to the thermal baths. The waters bring life, give strength and purity, whether spiritual or corporal, give encour- agement, joy, vision, fullness and life. In the Bible the desert wells are sources that offer nomadic joy and wonder, fertilization and nutrition. In Palestine, the hospitality gate has water always available to offer visitors to wash their hands and feet, to ensure peace and rest. The entire Old Testament celebrates the magnifi cence of the water. If the water fl ow from creation are present in creation itself.
Instead, the horrifi c dirty water becomes disgusting sight and smell, sick or dead:
pollution is cancer of the water. A technological and industrial civilization that has lead to multiple pollutants, can enliven the need to change strategies, new anxieties before what seems threatening to the health and quality of life of populations.
Hence, the water also presents itself as signifi ed and signifi er, which seems to mirror humans in their physical, moral and social whole and can be used to refl ect the ele- ment as dressing and revitalization of life in its in its entirety.
No wonder that since ancient times the water, and even more the waters that are associated with purifi cation and healing as with thermal waters, is raised to the sacralization. The city of Caldas da Rainha, having developed since the fi fteenth century in the shadow of the hot springs, behaves near their springs which is called the “holy water” zone. Sustained the idea that the diseases themselves from across the waters in conjunction with prayer, thereby allowing the body and get rid of bad health. It is not by chance that the fi rst church of this city called “NossaSenhora do Pópulo”, is precisely recessed into the building of their spa.
The millennial use of thermal and medicinal mineral waters used for bathing and health care is closely linked to curing diseases, because of their medicinal proper- ties. Worth mentioning particular diseases related to the digestive and respiratory system, liver, hypertension, rheumatism, diabetes, obesity … If it is true that the absolute cure of these diseases can hardly be achieved through these treatments intermittently, the that exists is that enrolling in a course or therapeutic itinerary, behave enrolled in regular annual or seasonal care routines, being typically associ- ated with periods of individual or family vacation.
Following these pathways, patients seek the immediate improvement of their health and the reduction of suffering and the medium and long-term freedom from ingestion of pharmacological drugs or other forms of medical intervention. Gains come here for all: directly to patients, so they can live better and avoid a more thor- ough use of formal health care and medicines; for governments and health services, in this way, can make savings of various kinds. So because health and its compo- nents are part of an increasingly complex economic, political, social, technological, cultural and metaphysical imbroglio.
Currently, the different uses made of the thermal waters according to their c hemical composition, falls to its importance in recovery and health promotion or the most varied uses made of them to another type of treatment. Many of them are extracted products or forge targeted therapies for beauty, aesthetics, pharmacology, health, tourism and leisure. In parallel, in connection with these spaces have been other offers health care more consistent with modern health concerns and their set- tings developed.
But there will still be place to say that very early the bathing spaces themselves were making in leisure, which abound Spa’s spiritualities and various cultural activ- ities, allowing bathers and perhaps to their relatives enjoying other activities, includ- ing tourist character outside the respective treatments. More recently, with the rapid increase in so-called “diseases of civilization”, beyond the conventional pharmacol- ogy or in spite of them, it is also more amenable to the appeal to combat stress and anxiety that calm and pleasant, landscaped environments and climatic many indi- viduals are immersed in the day-to-day.
After some time some slowdown, no wonder they return periodically to hasten thermal spaces multiple streams of holidaymakers, Travellers visitors or individuals looking for a space to take care of fruition, unwind, relax, grow, live, recover, shop- ping or enjoy other sociabilities forged over the periodicity of these times (re).
In this perspective, these peculiar thermal spaces meet a set of conditions that can exert power and driving force of attraction to captivate tourists in search of better health and well-being around the consumption of a public good like water with natural elements. In doing so, also give rise to the development of a whole range of activities able to streamline various economic and social forces to promote popula- tion mobility between various local public natural but diversifi ed.
The spa in people’s lives, social and cultural needs of living there and coming aspects constitute a learning option of individual and collective experiences and submission to certain social practices and hot in that many other practices are stopped and sojourn times. “The disruption that relocation to the spa down (…) opens up space for the emergence of a mode of temporary life, prone to the con- struction of provisional and ephemeral sociability of statutory symbols of redefi ning lifestyles. In this sense, the hot season plays not only a function of revitalization and evasion, but also, and therefore, an identity function” (Ferreira 1994 , p. 47).
In this context, spa goers acquire a particular identity tending to incorporate in the identity of those places of the buildings, the healing such singularities waters and hence of their diseases or other objects that lead to the here. These thermal iden- tity symbols also tend to spread to other recreational and tourist elements that do not exist, or at least would not have the same peculiarities, without the presence of these actors. Hence we can talk about aspects of change under the infl uence of these social and cultural dynamics able to streamline the activities of a city or a spa area.
The identity of the thermal areas is very often supported by local political and economic powers to attract tourists, to (re) create new jobs in an attempt to make the city more attractive or other population aggregates. Tend to invest in strengthening their characteristics, symbols, statutes, prerogatives of a healthy lifestyle that, at present, also binds to the good quality of infrastructure, climate, the good air, land- scapes, gastronomy, good people who is good live, and may confer, for example, the
distinctive “city health or welfare” (Baptista 2006 ). When we reveal these strands, bring to the foreground of this dynamic urban or rural areas with thermal water with characteristics different from others also for their agglutinating and attractive capa- bilities. These features reinforce its capacity to move people around a specifi c feature such as hydrological oriented recovery and health promotion and in doing so also give rise to the development of other identities, shopping and sightseeing activities.