Mr. Ilan Geva’s career in global advertising with a focus on tourism is what led him into the world of medical tourism. Mr. Geva is the principal of Ilan Geva and Friends, as well as an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University and the University of Chicago.
Mr. Geva is an active leader in building brands and marketing “MICE”-meetings, incentive travel, conferences, and events-which he sees as integral parts of international health and wellness tourism.
“Many destinations are making quite a nice income by generating MICE activities which is very different from leisure tourism,” says Mr. Geva.
Between his experience with general tourism, and medical tourism, Mr. Geva saw that the main connection between the two was hospitality. “Many people do not think of medical tourism as hospitality. When people travel for medical treatment, they can include the hospitality element in that trip. If they travel with family or friends the hospitality becomes very important,” says Mr. Geva.
Mr. Geva quickly sees the role of branding as an essential step in developing a successful medical tourism destination. He says brand development has a full 360-degree effect on medical tourism. It incorporates everything from internal to external branding, transportation and hospitality, and the health and medical providers themselves.