Origins and development of apitherapy and apitourism

Abstract

Unlike classic types of health tourism, such as exploiting water and climate, apitourism is only in the initial stages of development. On the global scale, Slovenia is one of the leading countries in the development of this type of tourism, as the first steps in apitourism were taken there. A Slovenian, Anton Janša, was one of the leading beekeeping experts in the 18th century, while Filip Terč is considered to be one of the founders of apitherapy as a branch of alternative medicine. The (historical) development of both is essential for the development of modern apitourism; a presentation of their specific development path in Slovenia is the main purpose of the paper. We found that there is a clear cause and effect relationship among the following concepts: beekeeping–apitherapy–apitourism. In this paper we analysed the link through a temporal and substantive aspect and found that the development brought about improvements to bee products and related services (apitherapy) in order to generate revenue (commercialisation); the benefits to the health of individuals and therefore the society (public health) should be pointed out as well.