EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF TOURISM OF HEALTH, BUDAPEST 2006

Representatives of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, countries with SPA tradition, will attend as guests, to the European summit that has as aim to achieve a more efficient integration of our natural inheritance "thermal water and its healing power", into the toutism market of European Union.

The European conference is built up of four clearly distint but integrally related thematic units, each one of them, with the medicinal waters as revitalizing element of the tourist-thermal activity.

BudapestThe first part presents the current health insurance schemes in the EU members and the possibility for their future expansion within health tourism. The aim is to formulate guidelines that can be used for the transformation of the health insurance systems in the EU countries, and those countries that want to adherein the future.

The presentation of the services of medicinal water as attractive market products, in the spirit of sustainable development, will be the second topic, to develope through the talks given by architects, financial and banking experts and investors.

The third part presents the aspect of management of thermal water reserves, namely the official classification of water as well as its more effective integration into medical services for prevention and rehabilitation, Our aim is for the use of our thermal waters to play an important part in the attitude of a "HEALTHY WAY OF LIFE FOR EUROPEAN CITIZENS".

The fourth part examines the mobility of specialised treatment for insurees within the European Union. Members of the European Parliament and EU lobbyist welcome the possibility for the elaboration of comunity regulations on thermal water services and water classification standars, so that the relations of service provider-consumer-product can be regulated in the area of health tourism, too.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM

The opening of the European Conference will be in charge of Dr. Istan Kolber, Minister of Local Development. The inaugural session will present the experience of Hungarian Health Insurance System and health services to foreigners. The possible connections between the Fund of Health and the Medical Tourism and several lectures over the Health Insurance in Hungary and the interrelation between suppliers of services of Medical Tourism and the System of Insurance.

The first day will conclude with several conferences on innovation in Tourism of Health and Spas Development, the trends and necessary tools in the European sector of the Tourism of Health and the Spas. The investment-financing in Tourism of Health, will be another topic analyzed as well as the development of projects in the health and spas fields.

THE ITER PROJECT

The European project that promotes the cooperation for the restoration and keep up to date of historic spas, as a resource that integrates the culture of the water and tourism of health, a full immersion in the way of life of the European Regions, will be presented by the Director of Museums and Cultural Inheritance of the Institute for Artistic, Cultural and Natural Heritage of the Emilia Romagna Region.

The ITER Project includes regions belonging to 18 countries, 9 of those are members of the European Union (Austria, Czech Republic, part of Germany, Greece, Hungary, part of Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Eslovenia), and the remainder 9 are at the present not integrated (Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croacia, Federation of Serbian and Montenegro, old Yugoslavian republic of Macedonia, Republic of Moldavia, Rumania and part of Ukraine).

Due to the spas cultural relevancy, the cataloguing of cultural inheritances and the ways of management, the European project provides a juridical exam of the guidelines and regulations in force in each one of the countries members.

EU GUIDELINES

The lecture regarding Guidelines and Regulations of Tourism of the European Union, in charge of a representative of the Committee of Transport and Tourism of European Parliament, will open the debate about the necessity of rating and qualifying the medicinal waters at community level. It will be raised if there is any demand for unified quality of insurance systems and how has approach changed since the latest EU adhesion.

We ought to remember that when there is not an uniform regulation (in Italy and Austria are national and local laws) is urgently to push ahead the general guidelines for future laws that regulate the spas. At the moment, in each one of these countries pertainig to EU, wide differences exist among the meanings of mineral water, medicinal water,thermal water and spring water.

The second day will pay special attention to the medicinal waters, as revitalizing element of the industry and the thermal tourism . The lectures will be about the achievements in the developments of the Hungarian Tourism of Health and future perspectives, the thermal water as base of the National Industry of Hungary as well as the Methods of Surveying Thermal Water Resources and Quality Control Procedures of Medical Waters by Authorities.

The participation of the scientific societies in this european summit, will be represented by the Dr.Tamas Bender, Chairman of the Hungarian Association of Medical Hydrology. He will deliver a lecture on the topic: Balneology Basic Terms and Efficiency Studies.

The European Conference of Tourism of Health 2006, will congregate hungarian professionals of the spas sector as well as scientific societies and official institutions of the industry of the Thermal Tourism of the magyar country. The Conference is organized by the Hungarian Association of Marketing in Tourism of Health (MEME).