The Spanish Confederation of Travel Agencies (CEAV), the National Federation of Private Clinics (FNCP), the National Association of Spas (ANBAL), the Business Federation of Dependency (FED) and the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT) have joined forces to create the Spanish Health Tourism Cluster. This group of associations was created with the double objective of positioning Spain as a reference in the Health Tourism market and attracting patient flows to our health centers and tourist infrastructures.
In this sense, during the act of constitution, Rafael Gallego, president of CEAV, stressed the importance of a “Cluster that will allow the development of a business field in which collaboration and coordination between experts of the service chain providers is very important”. Through the Cluster, he explained, the creation of a tailor-made tourism capable of offering value-added services and developing an even more attractive product for international markets is facilitated.
Not surprisingly, according to data from the FNCP’s market study on health tourism, the total volume of business recorded by the countries receiving health tourists exceeds 7.4 billion dollars. In Spain the market is around 140 million euros although, thanks to the measures proposed in the study, including the creation of this cluster, this figure is expected to grow to 500 million euros.
A market that, as explained by Íñigo Valcaneras, from the Clínica Universidad de Navarra and President of the Cluster, will increase cooperation between companies in both sectors, improving the competitive advantage of the whole. In this way, the cluster will be able to design a product that covers the entire value chain of health tourism.
This tourism has an enormous capacity for growth in our country thanks to the quality of the health and assistance system and the experience in the management of tourist flows, on the one hand, and the varied cultural offer and benevolent climate, on the other.
Through the creation of this cluster, Gallego Nadal stressed, not only is the incipient weight of both sectors in the national economy as a whole highlighted, but also a very specific industry, that of healthcare tourism, is boosted, which will increase the already positive tourism figures. Not in vain, he pointed out, “according to data from TURESPAÑA, in 2012, 21,868 tourists came to our country attracted by the quality of our healthcare sector or by Spain’s healthy lifestyle. These tourists spent 12.1 million euros, with an average expenditure that multiplies that of a conventional tourist and generally longer stays”.
