On 12th June 2018, owing to the conference “Health and Medical Tourism Summit – Eastern Europe 2018”, attended by 250 participants from over 20 countries, Lublin became the most important city for experts in medical tourism.
Does Eastern Europe develop in accordance with global trends in medical tourism? What is the role of intermediaries in the industry? Does active cooperation and the exchange of knowledge and experience allow for greater efficiency of processes in medical tourism? Does medical tourism influence economic growth of Eastern European countries? – we had the opportunity to receive the answers to these questions during the first in Poland, such a big event devoted to health and medical tourism organised by the City of Lublin, as the coordinator of the Lublin Medicine – Medical & Wellness Cluster.
The conference was opened by a presentation by Ilana Geva – an American expert in the field of branding and marketing on the medical tourism market, who received over 100 awards for promoting tourist destinations and companies. He emphasised the importance of clearly defined individual specialisation and maintaining the highest quality throughout the service process, in building a consistent and recognisable brand of medical tourism destinations. Subsequently, speakers from Poland, the USA, Great Britain, Germany, Israel, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Ukraine and Croatia discussed the growing interest in development of medical tourism and the chance for Eastern European countries to join this global trend.
The conference was accompanied by B2B meetings, during which the participants were provided with the opportunity to establish business contacts with 27 enterprises operating in the medical tourism industry, among others from Poland, Great Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Serbia, Czech Republic, China and Sweden. The conference was also an excellent chance to present and promote tourism values of Lublin and the Lublin province.
The conference was organised by the City of Lublin under the patronage of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Enterprise and Technology, the Ministry of Sport and Tourism, the Polish Tourist Organisation, the Polish Investment and Trade Agency as well as the Marshal of the Lublin Province. The event was held under the media patronage of Polish daily newspaper “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” and British “International Medical Travel Journal”.
