Health-Recreation Tourism is the most popular and common field of medical tourism, which has existed since ancient times. Ancient Greeks seeking to improve their health travelled to the Holy Home of Asclepius – God of medicine to visit the hotels, baths, and palestras (gymnastics school). Many European resorts still reveal the ruins of ancient Roman buildings once used for treating people with mineral water. Spa study as a basis for health tourism has been developing in Europe since XVII Century.

Nowadays there are 45,000 health resort clinics in Russia the best known being the resorts of Big Sochi and Caucasian Mineral Waters. Other famous places include Crimea, Truskavets (Ukraine), and Jurmala (Latvia).

Health-recreation tourism still remains one of the most promising areas within tourism in general. The reason behind its popularity in the XXI Century is the dominance of the preventive approach in medicine as well as healthy life styles that have come in lately.

Stavropol Krai has long been known (and for a reason) the largest resort and tourist region of Russia. The specially protected region of the Caucasian Mineral Waters has its history dating back 200 years ago and it is directly linked to the names of Peter the First and Alexander the First. The tourism potential of this region brings Stavropol Krai on fifth place in the Russian rating, and the Caucasian Mineral Waters account for 15% of all the resort & spa services offered in Russia.

The regional resources allow developing any type of tourism here, yet health & recreation are the top ones. The resort-spa stock of the Caucasian Mineral Waters includes 132 recreation spa clinics and over 70 hotels with a total capacity of 40,000 beds. In 2012 out of over 802,000 tourists out of 1 mln visitors to Stavropol Krai came to the Caucasian Mineral Waters region.

The natural spa resources of the Caucasian Mineral Waters make it a unique unmatched place of the entire Eurasian continent. Even the climate here is something full of recreational features, which is the basis for a separate efficient treatment – climate-therapy. A driving force behind this approach is a great number of recreation areas and parks, and Kislovodsk has the largest recreation park in Europe the total area of that being over 948 ha. It has around 100 km of terrainkurs – unique walking areas that allow designing your own walking route in view of the training load required for each particular person.

The mineral water of Essentuki matches the best international standards, while the springs of Pyatigorsk, Kislovodsk, and Zheleznovodsk stand above many world-known mineral spas by their chemical composition and therapeutic effect. There is no other place on Earth with a concentration of over 100 springs bringing out over 30 types of mineral water, let alone talking about the mud of Lake Tambukan.

Recreation in the clinics here does not only include classical spas yet also thorough examination procedure, and more than a few experts and visitors point that the treatment approach here is much more substantial than abroad.