Officials from both tourism and health offices are currently preparing for the upcoming medical tourism summit in the city.
Davao City Tourism and Operations Office (CTOO) head Regina Rosa Tecson said they initially conducted talks last week with city councilors Myrna Dalodo Ortiz who chairs the City Council tourism committee and Mary Joselle Villafuerte who chairs the City Council health committee and representatives from the Davao Medical Society and the Department of Health (DOH) XI for the 1st Davao City Medical Tourism Summit.
Tecson said they wanted DOH XI to prepare the guidelines and other necessary things to be applied to the business tourism as part of the preparation for the summit that basically aims to further promote the city’s medical tourism.
Using the guidelines, she said the DOT XI can determine what establishments will be issued with license.
“After that’s all set, that’s when we do a summit,” she added.
Thus, on Wednesday, officials are set to discuss the DOH’s guidelines on holding the medical summit.
“We wanted to know from the DOH what are the requirements needed. We set our parameters from there,” Tecson told TIMES.
Way back 2014, Councilor Villafuerte inserted the medical tourism on the revision of Tourism Code. Prior to the amendment, only medical spa was included in it.
Under the amended tourism code, there will be a mandatory submission of occupancy report by all accommodation establishments to the CTOO.
Health and wellness centers are also regulated to prevent illicit or immoral activities such as prostitution and the like. Through this, there will be a boost in promoting specialty practices to entice local and foreign tourists to visit the city.
