January 15, 2019 in the sanatorium “Kurort Orlovshchyna” (Novomoskovsk district) a working meeting of the health and medical sphere representatives was held. During the meeting, promising areas of the industry development, its investment attractiveness level, support programs, as well as the differences in the health and medical work of employees in the region, Ukraine and Germany were discussed.

The event was attended by:

• Henry Zimmerman, coordinator of the Ukrainian-German project “Developed social dialogue in the Dnipropetrovsk region”;
• Valentina Zatyshniak, Director of Dnipropetrovsk Regional Investment Agency (DIA);
• Viktor Sergieiev, Chairman of the Federation of Employers’ Organizations of Dnipropetrovsk Region
• Vitalii Dubil, Chairman of Dnipropetrovsk Regional Association of Trade Unions;
• Oleksandr Andriienko, director of the sanatorium “Kurort Orlovshchyna”.

Recreation and medical tourism remains one of the most high-demanded and profitable among other tourism areas. The fashion for a healthy lifestyle and an emphasis on disease prevention in modern medicine only increases its popularity. If every foreign medical tourist, on average, leaves in the Ukrainian clinic $ 2-2,5 thousd. and leading medical institutions earn about $ 100-125 million per year in the treatment segment, then the health tourism segment is only 1.5% more than the minimum times

Analysis of the sanatorium-and-health-resort industry in Dnipropetrovsk region current state indicates the possibility of health and medical services to become one of the priority areas for the future tourism development in the region. For this, it is necessary to work in several directions at once:

• development of disease prevention and rehabilitation programs (state and regional);
• financing (state and local) in the modernization of engineering and transport infrastructure;
• formation of investment attractive offers for investors (local preferences);
• systematic promotion of the region territories and sanatorium facilities (status of resorts, advertising, printed materials, media, etc.).

Now in Ukraine there is a mechanism for obtaining rehabilitation in sanatoriums, according to which treatment, accommodation and meals in sanatoriums are fully paid from the Social Insurance Fund (hereinafter referred to as the Fund).

In 2018, about 4.5 thousand people in the Dnipropetrovsk region received free rehabilitation in sanatoriums at the Fund expense. The region total budget for rehabilitation in sanatoriums in 2018 amounted to UAH 56.9 mln, and UAH 59 mln is planned for 2019.

As for the systemic promotion of the region territories and sanatorium facilities, the situation is rather sad. In total, there are 28 sanatorium facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk region, including:

• 8 sanatoriums have their own websites (Russian or Ukrainian languages);
• 6 sanatoria, which can be found in the online catalogs of hotels, sanatoriums, boarding houses and recreation centers of Ukraine (Russian or Ukrainian languages);
• 0 sanatoriums in international search networks for booking accommodation!

The development of tourism business is impossible without professional and broad information support. It is needed efforts for high-quality promotional campaigns, such as creation of directories and guidebooks. In developed countries, 30% of tourism profits are spent on advertising a national tourist product.

For the development of health and medical tourism, it is necessary to proceed from the position of a health tours formation new concept. They should provide not only inpatient treatment and preventive measures, but also excursion and sports routes, entertainment programs, comfortable and customer-oriented conditions. In other words, it is necessary to adapt the content of health services with the needs of the modern tourist, as it is successfully implemented all over the world with the help of public-private partnership.