Medical Tourism Forum 2014 – Polish Embassy

On the 20th of February 2014, British Polish Chamber of Commerce Kraków/ BPCC Kraków organized at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in London a Tourist Market Forum 2014.

The event aimed at drawing particular attention to medical tourism, an area in which one can observe huge potential and chance of development for Polish businessmen who offer services relating to it.

The forum enjoyed large attendance – the market reacted to the event in such a way that its concequence can only be another edition, which is planned for Autumn 2014. The next step taken by BPCC is inviting the British for Study Tours around Poland, in order to present them some of the most active entities remaining in partnership with the British Polish Chamber of Commerce. The participants of the Forum will surely take further steps to develop business contacts formed during the meeting.

The rank and significance of the forum was stressed by the letter from the MEP Paweł Kowal who is currently working on creating a unified tourist market in the EU.

The MEP stressed in his letter to BPCC Kraków, the Embassy of Poland in London and the participants of the Forum that:

“Poland has a tremendous opportunity and potential to become a global player in a tourism industry, especially in medical and sightseeing tourism which are the main focus on this conference”. We wish Polish businessmen to make use of this remarkable potential. What is more, Paweł Kowal stressed that he resolves to encourage all activities and initiatives taken up within the European Union’s tourism section policy.

Director of BPCC in Kraków Agnieszka Libura, Director of BPCC London Michael Clay and the first counsellor of the Departament of Industrial Policy and Promotion (WPHI) at the Embassy of Poland in London Leszek Banaszak, welcomed the participants in the beautiful interiors of the Embassy. The glamorous interiors pointed at the rank of the event, which was organized at the plea of the BPCC members and was settled as the meeting place in response.

During the lectures help by invited experts, the figures pointing at enormous potential of tourism area and medical tourism were confirmed. The speakers clearly stressed that Poland needs to use the opportunity created by the directive of the European Parliament and the Council 2011/24/UE from 9th of March 2011 becoming effective, concerning the application of patients’ rights in cross-border health care. The dinner created opportunity to take up talks on business cooperation between Polish and British participants. Both parties ware interested in maintaining a lasting relation, allowing for synergisting development of activities.

One of the elements of the programme was handing the “POLAND thanks you!” awards, which aim at honouring the activity of the British entities on behalf of Poland and its development in the tourism area. The awards were granted to: MD Angela Chouaib (Secret Surgery), who held remarkably interesting lectures on medical tourism, based on their own rich experience in that area.

We know that the Hungarians have made excellent use of the free flow of patients from other countries of the European Union. If they did this, we should follow their way and this fine example. Polish facilities offer services on remarkably high level, what was reflected in the speeches of the British lecturers.

In addition, our country can in fact offer anything a potential tourist could possibly want. The flow of the British tourists can lay foundation for business – its range is virtually unlimited. British Polish Chamber of Commerce is ready to help Polish businessmen to become beneficiaries of the activating endevours and those strenghtening the relations with the partners from the British Isles.

We believe that such chance should on no account remain unused, what was confirmed by every sentence of the experts speaking during the Forum. Awards/Sculptures were made by The Wieliczka Salt Mine.

Read More on: http://www.bpcc.org.pl/en/article/medical-tourism-forum-2014%5B2009530%5D.html