Health, Wellness and Tourism: healthy tourists, healthy business ...

Interview II was with the Chief Dental Officer of Hungary responsible for quality control and
head of dental staff and dental profession in the country. According to him, Hungary’s leading
position is based on its cheaper prices and high quality dental education. The proof of this
high quality education is coming from Israel, which is the only country where dental
education is measured. Israel has one of the highest proportions of dentists to the general
population in the world, with some 7,500 dentists currently practicing and about 300 new
ones joining the profession each year. That is reason, why they have introduced a dental
licensing examination, which is mandatory to complete successfully in order to obtain
recognition as a dentist. Apparently students having obtained their degree in the Semmelweis
University of Hungary, pass this exam with the highest results. In fact each year
approximately 120 international students are enrolled at one of the English language medical
programs at the university. The result of the EU/EEA Dental Complement Authorities Survey
from 2006 can be seen in Figure 2. Hungary has the highest ratio of dentists with the
specialist degree in the European Union. It is due to the fact, that before the political and
economic changes of 1989-1990 it was compulsory to study an additional 3 years in a
specialized filed of dentistry for being allowed to practice.
The remaining interviews confirmed the findings cited. Turning to the tourism related aspects
of the findings we discuss the way of organizing the trip, which will lead to the identification
of a destination based strategy in the next part of the paper.
Patients can organise their dental trips in three different ways. Contacting directly the dental
clinic, using a dental agent abroad, or booking via a dental travel agency.
In the most simple case, the patient contacts the dental clinic directly via internet or phone, in
order to get a quote for his treatment. In this model the patient does not pay the commission to
the agent for organizing the trip. Most of the dental clinics have agreements with partner
hotels, if the patient is asking for help in booking accommodation. The hotel can help them in
spending their free time. Clinics following this model are the least successful in the
international competition, as they have only the presence on the Internet abroad. However
those, which are located in well known spa destinations are receiving many incidental tourist