Forest Therapy and Well-Being Tourism Literature Review - With Assessment of Potential for Slovenia

Abstract

In addition to the fact that in Slovenia we nurture sustainable development and are committed to enforcing the principles of endogenous policy, we are also increasingly striving for innovative development solutions. This opens up new opportunities for the development of forest well-being tourism and forest-therapy tourism. The research problem refers to the growing tourist use of socio-cultural forest values for therapeutic tourism purposes on the one hand and an insufficient amount of literature on the other. The aim of the paper is to present a literature review that defines the beneficial effects of the forest on humans, and also to connect these findings with a tourism practice activity. We highlighted the potential and importance of forest therapy tourism and forest well-being tourism. Based on the 29 relevant papers from the Scopus database and studied examples of good practices, we gave an assessment of the potential for the development of therapeutic forest tourism in Slovenia. Examples of good practice are given. Opinion on the applicability of the implementation of forest therapeutic tourism in Slovenia is included.