Dear Delegate 

The Inaugural South African Health Tourism Congress (SAHTC) will be held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Gauteng, South Africa on the 29th and 30th of July 2009. Medical Health Tourism describes the rapidly growing practice of travelling both within countries and across international borders to obtain health care and is mainly influenced by a) the high costs or lack of treatment options available in countries of origin and, b) centres of specialised medical excellence that attract patients to specific destinations. Typically the service includes cosmetic procedures, orthopaedic, cardiac, oncology, paediatric and dental surgeries.

The Global Health Tourism market comprised over 19 million trips in 2005 with a total value of USD20 billion. Many countries are showing a double-digit growth in Health Tourism, which is forecasted to grow to 40 million trips, or 4 % of global tourism volume, by 2010.

The congress aims to stimulate the inbound health tourism market in South Africa and foster greater sector co-operation and alignment. There is a lack of local affordable products that protect both medical practitioners and clients from malpractice issues. The congress will examine international programs currently available and the Department of Health’s draft legislation with an impact on the growth of the private health care sector.

SAMA regulations prohibiting commercial brokers from recommending patients to doctors currently restrict doctors from marketing their services directly to the public, will be examined in the Congress program. Innovative marketing solution, accreditation and ethical standards will also be discussed.

This is the one event per year where public and private hospitals, insurance schemes, specialised cosmetic surgeons, health tourism facilitators, looking to attract inbound health clients, will gather to develop new relationships and contracts. SAHTC will prearrange networking and one-on-one networking meetings with the attending global buyers.

We look forward to welcoming you.

Click here to register