Portugal, Nov 3 (THAINDIAN NEWS) This week, Turismo de Portugal, the Portuguese National Tourist Office, and the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce in the UK, hosted a major conference which focused on “Private Healthcare, Nursing Homes and Medical Tourism” in Portugal.

The unique event highlighted various opportunities for investing in health and wellness tourism in Portugal. And it also showcased the various medical tourism offers already available related to this theme.

Health and wellbeing tourism has been a long-standing trend across Europe, and is expected to rise by around 5-10 percent by 2015. Portugal has been focusing its time and efforts on developing its medical tourism in this area. Its main focus is on Madeira and the Azores islands and with their amazing natural beauty, as well as the thermal spring waters throughout Portugal mainland.

Nazir Sacoor, CEO of Longevity Wellness Resort in the Algarve, said: “Portugal offers a number of ideal conditions for health and wellness tourism. It is a safe country, with great weather all year round and fantastic infrastructure. Flight connections to Faro and Lisbon and Porto are frequent and reasonably priced, and English is widely spoken by locals.”

“Portugal is ideally placed to make the most of wellness and healthcare tourism. We see this as a growing segment of the market and are promoting this more and more in the UK,” said Miguel Perestrello, Director of Tourism for the Portuguese National Tourist Office in the UK.