Global organisations meet to conceptualize wellness and medical tourism

Even though the phenomena of wellness and health tourism have been practiced for sometime, there are no definitive concepts for them.

The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the European Travel Commission (ETC) organized a roundtable in Budapest, Hungary to seek to better understand wellness and medical tourism.

In a press release issued July 4, 2016 by the UNWTO and copied to ghanabusinessnews.com, it said discussions at the two-day meeting were based on the ongoing ETC and UNWTO research on health tourism, a complex and not yet well-defined segment.

The meeting issued a report, which is the first attempt to set a coherent conceptualization of health tourism and define the motivations behind travelers looking for health-related services, the release said.

“The need to better understand an emerging, global, complex and rapidly changing phenomenon such as wellness and medical tourism has become essential to tap into its growth potential”, Márcio Favilla, UNWTO Executive Director for Operational Programmes and Institutional Relations was quoted as saying.

The final report establishing common grounds for a health-related tourism taxonomy will be published by the end of 2016, it added.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi