By Caribbean Medical News Staff
Puerto Rico has certified The Caribe Hilton and the Condado Plaza Hilton as its first hotels to be providers of medical tourism under the island’s new training and inspection, part of a major strategic plan to lure medical tourism to its shores.
The Caribe Hilton and the Condado Plaza are two of the island’s iconic hotels in the Condado region and trained staff in customer service, finance, administration and their executive staff through the programme offered by the Puerto Rico Medical Tourism Corporation and the MTA.
Jonathan Edelheit, CEO of the MTA, said that the results achieved through the initiative of International Patient Services and WellHotel Training and Certification were encouraging and deemed the programme a major success.
“Caribe Hilton and Condado Plaza will continue to further develop. We are proud to continue partnering with institutions characterized by their pioneering spirit that elevate their training efforts to benefit both residents of Puerto Rico and travelling patients,” he said.
Meanwhile Francisco G. Bonet, executive director of the Puerto Rico Medical Tourism Corporation said “As part of our strategic plan, we hired the MTA [Medical Tourism Association] for the process of training and certification to entities that not only provide healthcare services, but also complimentary services to medical tourism patients. During the month of August we initiated the second stage of certifications for the hospitality industry with a large group of hotels that are currently serving patients from abroad. Many of them are already in their final stage and today we are pleased to announce the first certifications for Caribe Hilton and Condado Plaza.”
A pleased Pablo Torres, General Manager of Carib Hilton said, “To the Caribe Hilton, it is of great importance to continue providing excellence and quality in all our services for the wellbeing of our guests.”
Meanwhile, Raúl Bustamante, managing director of the Condado Plaza Hilton stated, “Today we receive this certification that validates the optimal fulfilment of our quality standards.”
The Puerto Rico Medical Tourism Corporation has launched an aggressive marketing campaign to attract medical tourism to the island with hopes to create several thousands of jobs. In the interim, the island is expected to train around six hotels for certification soonest and absorb the other hotels in training and certification by the end of the year.
