We often refer here to new developments and trends in the tourism and leisure industry. These include, most recently, those that inevitably arise as a result of the general ageing of the world’s population. One such trend is precisely the rise of health tourism, or medical tourism. The German firm APD, whose portfolio of services includes outpatient care, assisted living, day care and ancillary services, has launched an initiative that highlights, or rather confirms, this trend.
To implement its initiative, APD has created the company APD CareVacation and has bought (with other partners) the three-star Panorámica Garden Hotel in Los Realejos, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Its aim is to develop “new projects based on hybrid forms of living and caring“. Specifically, APD CareVacation offers the sick and dependent or elderly people in general, holidays with health care and nursing care in the hotel.
In order to create APD CareVacation, the outpatient care company based itself on customer and employee surveys, in which customers and employees expressed their wish for travel offers that take their situation into account. Claudius Hasenau, CEO of APD, says that in addition to ensuring the “existential needs” of their patients, they also aim to “fulfil their wishes in terms of leisure, holiday and cultural enjoyment” and offer them and their relatives “real added value“.
The Hotel Panorámica Garden has 240 flats and studios that include a kitchen, balcony with mountain or sea views, and in some cases a barrier-free bathroom. Last August, the publication Tourinews reported the arrival of “the first six patients and two nurses” at the hotel. The hotel will welcome all types of guests, so medical escort service will be one of the options available.
