Abstract: The SWOT-AHP model framework was used to analyze the advantages, disadvantages, opportunities, and threats of high-quality development of the wellness tourism industry in Ankang City by obtaining data through questionnaire surveys and field research, and the weights of each indicator’s importance were assigned. The results showed that the wellness tourism industry in Ankang City was a strength-based industry, and that a positive and pioneering strategy should be adopted for its high-quality development. It was proposed that a development mechanism of “government-led, market-oriented, departmental coordination, and internal and external cooperation” should be adopted during the initial stage. This would ensure comprehensive planning and resource integration to achieve the integrated development of the regional wellness tourism industry under full-tourism construction. In the high-quality stage of industrial development, technological innovation should promote industrial integration, thus constructing the regional wellness tourism industry chain and industrial system to realize the characteristic, agglomeration and moderate scale development of regional wellness tourism.

Key words: wellness tourism, SWOT-AHP model, high-quality development, development strategy, Ankang City