International Health Tourism Expert, Maria Todd Presented the First Workshop in Ukraine on Health Tourism Business Development
On 1 October 2014, Ukrainian conference organizer JK Consulting in collaboration with the Turkish Health Tourism Development Council (THTDC) and the Global Health Tourism Council (GHTC), sponsored the first half-day workshop on Health Tourism Business Development. The workshop was led by internationally-recognized health tourism business development expert and the author of 4 professional and technical books, Maria Todd. Throughout the workshop, she shared tools, techniques, checklists, and know-how featured in her Handbook of Medical Tourism Program Development (CRC Productivity Press/Informa, 2011) with more than 60 class participants.
“The audience was spellbound by her every word. I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years I’ve been a conference and trade show organizer”
Participants spanned the sector from Ministry of Health officials to physicians, hospital and clinic managers, tour operators, travel agents, hoteliers, thermal waters rehabilitation centers, spa owners and operators, journalists, medical tourism facilitators, and even competing conference organizers who listened intently facilitated by a simultaneous translation. Todd covered branding, idiomatic messaging, quality and safety practices for facilitators, product development, logistics, and business development strategy and shared numerous anecdotes of best practices and lessons learned from around the world.
“The feedback about the course was extremely positive”, commented Khomych. “I watched from the sidelines as the audience was spellbound by her every word. I’ve never seen anything like it in the years I’ve been a professional conference and trade show organizer. They expressed appreciation regarding the value of the course, the timeliniess, what she covered, the specific relevance to CIS health tourism and her specific reccomendations for how to build their businesses and programs. We are already planning the workshop for next year and Maria is the only instructor I have under consderation to teach the course.”
Maria received many concerned messages and emails from friends, colleagues and even clients when she announced she was traveling to Ukraine to present the program. Maria commented, “As a woman that often travels alone on consulting missions to “hot spots” throughout the world, I drew upon my situational awareness training drilled over the years as a firefighter and EMT, a surgical nurse, and special private tutoring I arranged before embarking on global consulting missions to West Africa, India, Turkey, Colombia and Mexico. I wasn’t apprehensive at all about the trip.”
Todd’s heritage is half Ukrainian so she was thrilled to visit the country of her paternal grandparents for the second time in two years. Khomych and her staff accompanied Todd on a private city tour of Kiev and a delicious traditional Ukrainian meal of Halupki (Голубцы) (her absolute favorite comfort food from childhood, tied with Paella) hosted by Khomych and her team of organizers. They also sampled other traditional foods including varenyky (вареники) a kind of dumpling made with cherries, and borscht (борщ) a beetroot soup served with sour cream. “Medical tourism project consulting, provider network development, and training workshops I’ve been asked to present have connected me to new friends, introduced me to new places, new cultures and enabled me to visit and help the people of both Ukraine and Spain, (the latter being the birthplace of her mother and maternal grandparents). I am forever grateful and honored to be invited to participate in these international development projects.” Todd’s work in health tourism and international development includes work in 116 countries in the past ten years.
Maria Todd also presented an impromptu short session for physical medicine and rehabilitation specialists on the last day of the event to discuss branding and cross-cultural health services marketing techniques, filling time for two speakers who had to cancel their appearances at the last minute. The workshop was co-sponsored by the Global Health Tourism Council (GHTC) a Turkish-based NGO, of which Todd is a founding member of its Board of Directors and its Education Committee Chair. The sponsors wish to acknowledge the generous support of Turkish Airlines who provided round-trip international business class air travel for Dr Todd.
