Political will, mobilization of economic actors and networking. These are some of the factors that, together with the infrastructure and existing offer, may prove to be decisive in the internationalization of Health and Well-being Tourism, a theme that was in focus this Wednesday at a seminar held in Faro.
The debate «Health and Wellness Tourism: Sustainable development and internationalization of health» brought together several personalities linked to this sector at the School of Hospitality Management and Tourism of the University of Algarve. The initiative brought together many businessmen from the sector and even members of the diplomatic corps in the same room.
The Government is betting on the structuring and regulation of the Health and Wellness Tourism sector and economic agents took the opportunity to unite and leverage this market niche.
In addition to the creation of the Portuguese Association for Health and Welfare Tourism (APTSBE), a brand in this sector has also been established for the Algarve. In May, a Portuguese representation, which will bring together public and private entities in the same space, will be at the GrimaldiFórum space, in Monaco, to participate in one of the most relevant international fairs in the sector.
The presence in this forum can be considered a consequence of the focus that an inter-ministerial working group is giving to the internationalization of the health sector in Portugal. The objective is “to enhance the entire health value chain”, so that there is an increase in exports.
A task that, according to the coordinator of the work group Carlos Martins, can help to significantly increase the values generated by different elements of the chain, including Health Tourism.
“The value chain is now taken over, it was something that had never happened. It included architecture, construction, equipment, furniture, research, training, industry and care," he told the Sul informação the advisor to the Minister of Health, who represented the tutelage in yesterday's debate. Health Tourism is “a priority” when it comes to provision and care.
“Our estimate, which we believe to be realistic, is that the entire health value chain will generate external revenue in the order of 1,5 billion euros in 2015,” revealed Carlos Martins, on the sidelines of the event.
«It must be stressed that, at this moment, the sector already represents gains of one billion euros. We are not starting from scratch”, he considered.
No more investment is needed, just organization
In order to increase external revenues in the Health Tourism sector, «it is not necessary to invest another euro», all it takes is «to organize and promote what we already have», believes Carlos Martins.
In the Algarve, examples of this installed capacity are the «six private hospitals», the «more than 70 SPAs» and also the «many clinics» that exist in the region, recalled the president of APTSBE João Viegas Fernandes.
In the case of hospitals, the offer is divided into two groups, the Private Hospitals of Portugal (HPP) and Private Hospitals of the Algarve (HPA). Companies that gave their testimony in the debate and made it very clear that, whatever the marketing strategy, quality is an unavoidable element when it comes to internationalization.
Both the HPP Algarve representative Paulo Neves and the HPS Clinical Director Paulo Sousa recalled that there is a lot of competition inside and outside Europe and there are some markets with which it is impossible to compete via price, namely in Asia.
In their testimonies, the representatives of the economic groups were not afraid to share some elements of their strategies for attracting customers, which ended up being largely based on the differentiation of services and specialization in certain therapies and medical techniques.
The representative of the Ministry of Health also stressed that there is already a lot of quality and offer, based on what he considers most important: «a National Health Service of excellence».
Carlos Martins argued that what gives real guarantees that a country has the capacity to respond in the health sector «is its National Health Service». In other words, only with a quality public offer will our healthcare system motivate trust abroad.
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