The Global Healthcare Accreditation Program has launched new accreditation programs for hotels looking to attract wellness and/or medical travel guests. Both accreditation programs—WellHotel for Well-being and WellHotel for Medical Travel—focus on validating the programs hotels provide for these growing niche markets. The accreditation seal is meant to establish trust and offer a competitive edge to those hotels that achieve accredited status.
“This year has provided revitalized interest from hotels to reinvent niche offerings to meet the demand of discerning travelers looking to resume travel for well-being and medical travel,” said Karen Timmons, GHA's CEO. “GHA WellHotel is committed to providing hotels with a comprehensive set of best practices to assist in building trust and confidence on the part of guests seeking a medical or wellness destination. The seal achieved for hotels through accreditation supports wellness and medical travelers looking for a safe, high-quality wellness destination while offering an excellent guest experience. GHA is the only accrediting body focused entirely on medical and wellness travel, and its goal is to share professional norms and best practices for stakeholders in these industries.”
The GHA Wellhotel accreditation program offers these key highlights:
- Building trust, confidence and comfort for wellness tourists or medical travel guests through a third-party review and trusted GHA WellHotel seal.
- Attraction by guests in new niche markets to increase room bookings and length of stay.
- Validation of the hotel's cleanliness and safety and instilling peace of mind that proper cleaning and sanitation is a hotel priority.
- Validation that safety protocols are in use for guests and staff.
- Attraction for bookings through wellness travel agents and medical travel facilitators.
- Providing assurance to medical travel and wellness guests that the hotel identifies and supports the cultural, dietary, religious, handicapped access and other unique needs of the guests/patients.
- Increase in guest satisfaction for wellness tourists and medical travel guests.
- Well-being and medical travel packages provide an opportunity for organizations to increase total revenue per available room.
The application and accreditation process are completed online and include access to the accreditation handbook and online training. Hotels must meet certain foundational requirements to be eligible for accreditation and submit required documentation that is reviewed by the GHA WellHotel compliance team to render the accreditation decision. Hotels serving both wellness and medical travel guests have the option of undergoing both accreditations simultaneously.