Cuba's potential as a destination for health and wellness tourism was a constant theme during the recently concluded 41st International Tourism Fair, FITCuba 2023.
An important element in the chain that contributes to this modality is Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos, S.A. (CSMC, S.A.), a company that coordinates the country's potentialities for those who wish to combine relaxation with medical and wellness treatments, or simply for those who consider it an optimal option to solve their health problems.
In the context of FITCuba 2023, Beatriz Areña Fraga, first vice president of CSMC S.A., made a presentation on Cuba, a health tourism destination, in which she showed the country's strengths, characteristics and infrastructure for the promotion of health and wellness tourism.
"It is part of the company's business modalities, a network of provider institutions that allow the coordination of unique, personalized and attractive programs; of course, this can only be achieved by having highly qualified, recognized professionals, who are distinguished in turn by the humanism and warmth with which they treat patients".
She highlighted the favorable impact on the development of health tourism of the links and alliances with the actors involved in the tourism sector, which have made it possible to change the mentality; the advantages offered by Cuba as a destination, with a wide and diverse hotel industry distributed all over the country; and the existence of international clinics in the main poles. She emphasized that more and more clients are no longer feeling that they are patients, and that they are more interested in wellness than in the disease itself.
Subsequently, the first vice-president of the CSMC detailed the characteristics of the main institutions that make up the healthcare network at the service of international tourism and the treatments developed in these that enjoy proven prestige worldwide.
She referred to the portfolio of business opportunities in the health sector. There are several possibilities offered by the area of medical services to foreign investment that contribute to the improvement of the infrastructure for health tourism; there are projects for the construction, remodeling, restoration and commercialization of wellness and health centers in spas with thermal mineral-medicinal waters, as well as projects that look for the incorporation of state-of-the-art technology and international quality standards..
Cuba is committed to taking advantage of its existing tourist capacity and adding value to it with wellness and quality of life services, specializing in bioenergetic, naturopathic, therapeutic-rehabilitative and esthetic medicine. In addition, its proven social and health security, its exceptional nature and climate, together with its rich culture and the warmth of its people, make the country an ideal destination for those who wish to combine relaxation with medical and wellness treatments.
Beatriz also officially launched the Second Edition of the International Medical Tourism and Wellness Fair, FITSaludCuba 2024, whose main objective is to present the advances and services related to specialized health tourism at the international level, as well as to consolidate alliances and explore new opportunities for the sustainable development of this type of tourism.
In another moment of the FITCuba program, a Wellness Tourism Panel was held, with the purpose of promoting the alliance between the health and tourism sectors; an exchange that brought together representatives of the CSMC, travel agencies and Cuban and foreign hotel chains with a presence in Cuba.
In the field of health and wellness tourism, the projects to resume the thermalism, even in the current conditions of certain deterioration of some facilities, are particularized. It was also pointed out in the workshop the need to turn the possibilities into tourist offers. It prevailed among the assistants, actors of the product, the will to go operating in the extent that the facilities are in conditions of possibilities. It does not have to be a complete hotel, but to create wellness rooms.
Among the products in process, the following stand out: San José del Lago, Mayajigua, an Islazul facility with an investment from Mintur; Blue Diamond Resorts, which, in a workshop to be held soon, will define the hotels that will incorporate the quality of life and wellness programs; Cubanacan, which has Marea del Portillo ready to start the high season in November, as well as in Santiago de Cuba; NH, which has already scheduled an upcoming meeting with the CSMC.
By Josefina Pichardo.
Taken fromExcelencias Cuba.