Kos: Hippocrates Birthplace to Host KEDE Int’l Health Tourism Conference

Kos Island. Photo Source: @Kos Island (www.kos.gr)

International opinion leaders and experts of health, medical and wellness travel will meet during June 23-24 on the Greek island of Kos, the host destination of the 2nd International Conference on Health Tourism. Kos is the birthplace of Hippocrates, Father of Medicine.

Organized and sponsored by the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece (KEDE), which aims to boost the country’s health travel industry, the second international conference will invite public and private partners of health and tourism, as well as Greece’s Diaspora, to launch synergies to establish Greece as an attractive health travel destination on the World Health Tourism Index.

Participants, including international opinion leaders and visionaries of health travel industry, experts of medical and wellness fields of health travel, members of the Greek government and local government, and Greece’s key players in the development of health tourism, will discuss the prospects of the rapidly growing sector of Greece’s economy, health and medical tourism.

During the conference, the role of stakeholders in the development of health tourism and the importance of their cooperation in the development of an integrated tourism product, will be analyzed.

According to KEDE, Greece currently has gained only three percent of medical tourism worldwide, though health and wellness tourism development is considered one of the most dynamic sectors of Greece’s economy for the coming decade, by directly contributing to the expansion of the tourism season.

“From the island of Hippocrates, Kos, we will promote Greece’s ‘extroversion’ through the awareness of health tourism and wellbeing tourism prospects of our country,” KEDE President Giorgos Patoulis said. He also leads the Medical Association of Athens and the National Health Tourism Council Elitour.

The Municipality of Kos is the conference’s co–organizer, contributing to the global awareness of Greece as the birthplace of medicine and medical travel.

Hippocrates’ statue on Kos Island.

Hippocrates the Father of Modern Medicine was born on Kos and studied, practiced and taught therapeutic Medicine at the Asklepieion of Kos. In ancient times the Asklepieion was the temple of worship of the god Asclepius, healing ground for the ill and a school for the study of Medicine, which Hippocrates had instituted within the sanctuary’s area.

On the sidelines of the conference, a representation of the Hippocratic oath of antiquity is scheduled to take place at the Asklepieion of Kos.