Durano, Duque to open World Health Tourism Congress 2009 today

MANILA, Philippines - Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III will lead the delegates of over a hundred health and wellness organizations from around the globe in opening the World Health Tourism Congress (WHTC) 2009 at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza at 9 a.m. today.

Durano will deliver the keynote address after a special message by Duque and welcome remarks by Tourism Undersecretary for Sports and Wellness Tourism Cynthia Carrion.

Durano said the foreign delegates were brought in by Dubai-based WHTC organizer Aura International for the country’s first-ever hosting of an international health and wellness event of this magnitude.

Durano and Aura International managing director Hadi Malaeb said this DOT-supported international event would showcase the Philippines as a global health and wellness destination and position it strongly in the world medical tourism map.

“Coming from big corporate, government and institutional buyers of health and wellness tourism services, the foreign delegates will have a tour of the country’s world-class facilities and tourism destinations after completing their business meetings with sellers of medical travel packages from the Philippines and the rest of the world,” Durano said.

The foreign delegates, according to Malaeb, are from big organizations in Malaysia, Japan, Nepal and Russia in Asia; United States and Canada in North America; Egypt, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Libya in Africa; United Kingdom, Ukraine and Azerbaijan in Europe; and Bahrain, Syria, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen and Qatar in the Middle East.

For the first time in WHTC’s four-year history, the participants were treated yesterday morning to a series of presentations by the DOT, St. Luke’s Medical Center, Cebu Health and Wellness Council, Medical City, and George Dewey Medical College, with WHTC ground handler Angel Ramos Bognot of the National Association of Independent Travel Agencies (NAITAS) as moderator of the open forum.

Bognot said, “The four highly successful years of WHTC showed how health and wellness had emerged as one of the world’s leading tourism products now being marketed globally, not only by their traditional agents, but also by a fast-growing number of travel firms worldwide, NAITAS members included, all taking advantage of this $40-billion market that could soar to $60 billion by 2012.”

This phenomenon, Durano said, prompted the DOT to make health and wellness a key component of its product diversification strategy in a bid to capture as many areas and segments of the world tourism market as possible, especially amid the global financial crunch.

“It has been our sustained campaign since 2004 to widen the base of our tourism products and make health and wellness a very strategic B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) product line, it being a human necessity and therefore an essential cross-border commodity,” Durano said.

“So, through Aura International, we have gathered here the world’s direct institutional buyers and agents to help market our best health and wellness travel packages for their large clientele all over the world,” he added.

“These organizations are the ones who decide where and when to send their citizens or employees or clients for medical treatment abroad,” Carrion said.

“And we are making sure that our country’s health and wellness products and services will find the way to the top of their list,” Durano stressed.