Rebranding Sanur as a Medical and Wellness Tourism Hub

A Policy and Planning Analysis of Tourism Transformation in South Denpasar, Bali

Abstract

This paper examines the policy-led transformation of Sanur, Bali, into a medical and wellness tourism destination, focusing on how health-oriented development is strategically articulated within national and regional planning discourses in the context of tourism diversification and post-pandemic recovery. Drawing on an interpretive policy analysis of key planning, regulatory, and strategic documents, the study explores how medical and wellness tourism is mobilized not merely as a response to shifting market demand, but as a governance instrument intended to reposition a mature coastal destination beyond volume-based leisure tourism. The findings demonstrate that policy discourse frames medical and wellness tourism as a mechanism for economic upgrading, spatial reconfiguration, and institutional coordination through the Special Economic Zone framework, discursively reconstructing Sanur as a controlled, standards-driven destination aligned with international healthcare norms and investment logics. At the same time, the analysis reveals strategic silences within policy narratives, particularly concerning socio-spatial implications, regulatory complexity, and the long-term integration of health services within an established tourism area. By foregrounding both policy narratives and their silences, this study contributes to tourism governance literature by showing how destination transformation in mature tourism contexts is shaped through selective planning rationales that legitimize particular development pathways while marginalizing alternative futures, underscoring the need to understand medical and wellness tourism development as a fundamentally political and spatial process rather than a purely market-driven phenomenon.

  Keywords: medical and wellness tourism; tourism governance; policy discourse analysis; destination transformation; special economic zones.