Hellenic Center of Excellence for Health and Wellness Launches on Crete

Members of the Advisory Board of the Hellenic Center of Excellence for Health & Wellness

The Hellenic Center of Excellence for Health and Wellness, a non-profit initiative aimed at promoting Greek culture with a focus on the plant-based Mediterranean Diet, one of the world’s healthiest eating plans, was launched this week during a special event at the Amirandes Grecotel Boutique Resort on Crete.

An initiative of third-generation Greek Stefanos Kales, professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School with the support of the Daskalantonakis Group of Companies- Grecotel and the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO), the Hellenic Center of Excellence for Health and Wellness comes to set a vision of Grecotel founder Nikos Daskalantonakis into motion.

Vassilis Minadakis, general manager of Amirandes Grecotel Boutique Resort; Dimitris Kalaitzidakis, Grecotel operations director; Stefanos Kales, professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The Daskalantonakis Group of Companies-Grecotel has been a leader in the creation of high-quality tourism products which are integrated into the traveler experience through the connection with Cretan nature and its products. 

“For half a century now, Grecotel’s philosophy has focused on the producer, the product, and the quality, and how all this reaches our guests, introducing them to life experiences and initiating them into a nutritional philosophy that transports them to traditional Crete,” said Demetris Kalaitzidakis, Group Operations director at Grecotel Hotels & Resorts.

“We aspire through this center and having the honor to work with leading personalities in many fields on a global level to further develop this philosophy. With emphasis on the benefits of the Cretan Diet, the crown of the Mediterranean Diet, an ‘ark of experiences’ will travel around the world and help correct erroneous mentalities and destructive eating habits,” he added.

Stefanos Kales with Crete Governor Stavros Arnaoutakis

Internationally acclaimed academics and experts, members of the center’s advisory board, as well as GNTO Secretary General Dimitris Fragakis visited Crete for the inaugural event. 

Fragakis stressed the importance of the center which “presents and promotes the traditional Cretan Diet to the world particularly now given that the traditional Greek Diet and gastronomy is one of the main axes of the GNTO’s strategy for the promotion of Greece as a leading tourist destination.