Abstract
Wellness and health tourism has experienced significant global growth, driven by increasing demand for integrated
therapeutic experiences that combine natural resources, environmental context, architecture, and interior design. The Dead Sea is
one of the world’s most prominent wellness destinations due to its exceptional climatic and mineral properties. However, hotel
architecture in the region often continues to follow conventional hospitality models that emphasize general leisure amenities
rather than spatially integrated therapeutic systems rooted in the specificity of place. This study examines the role of architecture
and interior design in supporting wellness tourism at the Dead Sea by analyzing the relationship between environmental context,
natural resources, wellness-oriented spatial systems, tourist experience, and the operational sustainability of hotels. A DesignBased Mixed-Methods Approach was adopted, combining typological analysis of therapeutic spatial systems, spatial assessment
of selected hotels, questionnaires distributed to guests (n = 260), and semi-structured interviews with owners and managers (n =
8), supported by descriptive data analysis. The findings reveal a clear gap between the Dead Sea’s exceptional therapeutic
potential and its actual spatial translation within existing hotels. Recreational functions were found to dominate over specialized
and integrated therapeutic systems, resulting in fragmented wellness experiences. The results also indicate a substantial mismatch
between guests’ strong preference for integrated therapeutic components and their limited actual availability, negatively affecting
satisfaction, revisit intention, and perceived hotel performance. In addition, owners and managers confirmed a direct relationship
between the efficiency and integration of therapeutic spatial systems and the operational sustainability and competitiveness of
hotels. The study concludes that adopting a place-based wellness-oriented hotel architecture model, in which therapeutic systems
function as generators of spatial organization rather than secondary service features, represents a strategic pathway to enhance
tourist experience and strengthen the operational sustainability of Dead Sea hotels.