Achieving greater integration among the actors that provide services and manage processes in Cuba's health and wellness tourism strategy is one of the main challenges for its full implementation.

According to Iliana Reyes, Head of Sales and Operations of the Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos, S.A. (CSMC, S.A.), the strategy designs efforts aimed at promoting two activities: medical and wellness tourism.

In the case of the former, she added, it includes planned trips to another city or country, whose primary motive is to contribute to physical, mental or spiritual health through medical, preventive or curative activities.

Meanwhile, wellness tourism includes preventive, proactive and lifestyle-enhancing activities such as gymnastics, healthy eating, relaxation and personal care.

The strategy designed from alliances between the Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos and the Ministry of Tourism "highlights the need to implement a management and commercial model towards the promotion and sale of these services at source -international sales- to expand the tourism segment that visits the Island," explained Reyes.

During a meeting at the Cuban Chamber of Commerce, he commented that to contribute to that process, the Wellness Catalog was developed, with six chapters and more than 26 programs, which show different experiences for clients according to their individual needs, he said.

In addition, a methodology was created to draw up a Wellness Program with a sales format that considers levels of flow of health tourism services, according to the value chain of a person's comprehensive health.

"At a first level is wellness, followed by prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation. The level of services determines where they can be performed, who is the provider and how they are commercialized," he stated.

Thus, the first two levels of the flow contemplate activities that can be developed in hotel facilities, although it is necessary to generate specific sites where to carry them out and for that purpose to think of alternatives such as foreign investment.

Meanwhile, the actions of the other three should be offered in specialized clinics, hospitals and international health centers, and require specialized personnel from the Ministry of Public Health and Biocubafarma, he said.

Reyes insisted that, in order to achieve sustainable and competitive health and wellness tourism, international certifications and accreditation are required, so specific procedures and training must be designed to guarantee these requirements.

In this regard, the director of Development of the Ministry of Tourism, Alexander Sierra, highlighted the role of local development to ensure the implementation of the strategy.
"As a country, we must develop a tourism comprehensiveness, so that the visitor receives a well-conceived product, which at the same time has an impact on municipal and provincial development," he remarked.

Taken from  CubaPLUS Magazine