The Hungarian stakeholders of the InnovaSPA project had their second meeting, where they had the possibility to evaluate the good practices gathered through the first half of the study visits and to inform the Managing Authority about their plans based on the experiences. This summarizing meeting was inevitable to be able to work on the Regional Action Plan in the next semester, which will contain the possible and suggested improvements of policies connected to thermalism.
The project manager started the day by the short presentation of the project and the results achieved until the day. One cannot ignore the fact that medical and wellness tourism has a strong contribution to the economy.
It was great to see the commitment of the stakeholders and their active participation when they had the possibility to share the experiences gained through the study visits and how those can be adapted to our area.
The stakeholders also talked about the Good Practices mentioned by the project partners as interesting for them from the study visit organised by Hungary in May 2019. It is evident that Észak-Alföld region is rich in thermal water and thermalism is traditional here. High-level experts of thermal therapies are available here and the services are also good. To the medical and wellness therapies new complementary programs can be added to attract new target groups and of course marketing and networking strategies are to be developed. The roles of the Thermal-Health Industrial Cluster, HungaroSPA Hajdúszoboszló or Aquaticum Hotel and Spa, the Local Government of Hajdú-Bihar County, the Hungarian Association of Spas, University of Debrecen or other stakeholders are different, but their networking is very important.
The representative of the Managing Authority of the Economic Development and Innovation Operational Programme was convinced by the results of the Programme and stated that the Managing Authority is also committed to the possible results of the InnovaSPA project as those can contribute to the economic development and the innovation of the Hungarian regions.
