Organized by the Croatian Association of Health Tourism and the Zagreb Health Tourism Cluster led by Dr. Miljenko Burom held a working meeting attended by the State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts Mr. Zdenko Lucić, representatives of the City of Zagreb and 25 leading Croatian entrepreneurs and experts in the health, sports and tourism sectors.
Through a broad consensus at this working meeting, a joint platform for a systematic increase of the competitiveness of health-tourism offer and Croatian health tourism as a branch of industry in general was created. Croatia, as a traditionally tourist-oriented country, has key factors for the development of health tourism offerings and all participants agreed that it is necessary to take on a new and better position in the global business market in health tourism, which is experiencing intense growth each year and is now estimated at over 150 billion dollars per year. The Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Craft has recognized the broad economic potential and vision of our health and tourism platform and has joined this initiative and strongly supports clusters as the leaders of the development of health tourism. It is necessary to improve the institutional and the legal framework to improve the investment climate in Croatia, and to make the realization of investments and projects as efficient as possible. All participants rated it very important that the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts recognized health tourism as a possible strategic developmental pathway and united to this process uncompromisingly. Already under preparation 3. The Investment Forum of Health, Sport and Tourism, which will be held from 21 to 22 October this year in Zagreb, will be shown and will be actively involved as part of the entire process and will be the co-sponsor of the forum and will put its resources and capacities available.
The desire of all participants of this working meeting is to create the preconditions for Croatia to become a year-round tourist destination. In addition to the new health-tourism centers, the offer of existing health resorts needs to be complemented by the construction of new hotel and accommodation facilities where special attention is paid to the respect of the environment and the ambience of the space when building new health tourism facilities. By enriching the existing supply with additional amenities, the needs of different users segments, especially "senior citizens" who are health and tourism service providers throughout the year, it is possible to expect that tourism through health tourism becomes an economic activity that will generate significantly higher profits and employment of staff throughout the year years. With the increase in the number of tourists staying out of the summer season as well as increasing the potential users of medical, health and recreational services and the active withdrawal of EU funds this goal is realistic and achievable.
The future of tourism is in synergy with health!
