FITUR 2018 Spain’s biggest Tourism Fair, highlighted importance of Helath Tourism worldwide

FITUR 2018 has broken its historic record with 251,000 visitors, which is 2.5% more than last year.

10,000 companies from 165 countries and different regions participated in the 38th edition of the event, with an important economic impact of more than 270 million euros for Madrid. One of the highlights of this great business forum of the world tourism industry has been played by Fitur Salud, a section organized by Spaincares in Pavilion 8 of Ifema.

Health tourism is already a sector of great importance that unites two strong points of the Spanish economy: wide and varied offer of tourism and high sanitary quality. Therefore, the International Tourism Fair includes four years ago a sample of this growing tourist niche.

Spaincares organized a program of contents, conferences and round tables on the sector that featured top-level international speakers on topics of maximum relevance, B2B and B2C spaces, meeting points and public information.

Health tourism trends
The panel discussed the ‘Intercontinental Medical Tourism Trends in Europe’ in which all the speakers agreed that, with their particularities, their fellow citizens can find quality healthcare in their countries.

Faced with this situation, one might ask, why do they seek out what, apparently, they can find in their own countries? The answer is that they seek to spend less money, maintaining the quality they can find in other countries – as well as in theirs, where the treatment has the highest cost.

Another one of the lectures with greater assistance was the one of Ilaria Giannico, general secretary of the UEHP (European Union of Private Hospitals).

She spoke about the current status of the European cross-border directive, which contemplates the conditions under which citizens can move to another EU country in order to receive medical assistance, as well as the reimbursement that you should receive in your country of origin.

The main objective of the UEHP is to promote Private Health Care in Europe, defending that it is a fundamental element for the support of the health system in any country in the world.

More information on: as.com