Charming Colombia
The Republic of Colombia is a country largely in the north of South America, with territories in North America. Colombia is bounded on the north by the Caribbean Sea, the northwest by Panama, the south by Ecuador and Peru, the east by Venezuela, the southeast by Brazil, and the west by the Pacific. It comprises 32 departments and the Capital District of Bogotá, the country’s largest city. With an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers (440,831 square miles), Colombia is the fourth-largest country in South America, after Brazil, Argentina and Peru. It is alsa the 25th-largest country in the world, the fifth-largest country in Latin America, and the fourth-largest Spanish-speaking country.
With over 50 million inhabitants Colombia is the third-most-populous country in Latin America, and the world’s third-most populous Spanish-speaking country. Its population is ethnically and linguistically diverse, with its rich multicultural heritage reflecting influences by several Amerindian civilizations, Spanish settlement, forced African labor, and immigration from Europe and the greater Middle East. Urban centres are concentrated in the Andean highlands and the Caribbean coast.
Colombia has been inhabited by indigenous peoples since at least 12,000 BCE, including the Muisca, Quimbaya, and Tairona. Spaniards arrived in 1499 and by the mid-16th century annexed part of the region, establishing the New Kingdom of Granada, with Santa Fé de Bogotá as its capital. Independence from Spain was achieved in 1819, but by 1830 the Gran Colombia Federation was dissolved, with what is now Colombia and Panama emerging as the Republic of New Granada. The new sovereign state experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation (1858), and then the United States of Colombia (1863), before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Panama seceded in 1903, leading to Colombia’s present borders. Beginning in the 1960s, the country suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict and political violence, both of which escalated in the 1990s. Since 2005, there has been significant improvement in security, stability, and rule of law, as well as unprecedented economic growth and development.
Colombia is one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries and has the second-highest level of biodiversity in the world. Its territory encompasses Amazon rainforest, highlands, grasslands, and deserts, and it is the only country in South America with islands and coastlines along both the Atlantic and Pacific.
Colombia is considered a middle power in international affairs, being the only NATO Global Partner in Latin America and a member of several major global and regional institutions, including the OECD, the UN, the WTO, the OAS, the Pacific Alliance, an associate member of Mercosur and other international organizations. Colombia’s diversified economy is the third largest in South America, with macroeconomic stability and favorable long-term growth prospects. It is subsequently classified as part of the CIVETS group of leading emerging markets.
Health Care Tourism In Colombia
The Colombian government is promoting their country as a medical tourism destination for cosmetic surgery and dentistry. They are promoting Columbia as a medical tourist destination that offers low cost – high quality treatment.
The Colombian government is beginning to promote the South American country as a medical tourism destination, where visitors can receive high quality-low cost treatments such as cosmetic surgery and dentistry.
Tourism minister Luis Guillermo Plata says that the government expects to see a rise in medical tourism visitors because the quality of Colombian medicine is high but far cheaper than treatments in Europe and the USA.
The source of the figure is not known but the government estimates that around twenty foreigners travel to Colombia every month for cosmetic surgery procedures such as liposuction, rhinoplasty and breast augmentation. This works out to a mere 250 a year.
The majority of patients come from the USA, Spain, Panama and Mexico, and most of these are Colombians residing in other countries.
Figures of 20,000 to 30,000 medical tourists a year are regularly quoted by organisations promoting Colombia. But the government recently admitted that they actually have no recent figures and the latest they have is from 2008 where somebody took the total number of inbound medical tourists, made an assumption of the percentage who were health tourists, and came up with a figure of around 20,000. After 2008, the numbers of tourists, particularly from the USA, plunged due to the global economic crisis, and have only recently begun to recover.
Colombia has long tried to promote itself for medical tourism, based on a small handful of internationally accredited hospitals, with most struggling to keep or international accreditation. The reality is that the handful of medical tourists to the country come for dental treatment or cosmetic surgery, and local estimate that numbers are now less than a thousand as Colombia has lost out to rivals with better and cheaper services, and safer destinations.
Going forward, the government is planning alliances between the health and tourism sectors to create packages that will include medical treatment, accommodation, food, transfers, and more. These will concentrate on cosmetic surgery, dental treatment and weight loss surgery.
Another area that wants to promote is health and wellness tourism with spas and spa-hotels planning to improve services.
Colombia has finally admitted that the quality of services on medial and wellness tourism has lagged behind rivals and that vast improvements plus improvements in the infrastructure are vital as a matter of urgency. The government is helping investment in local spas and clinics to upgrade services and to build modern new facilities.
Effectively the government is starting from scratch to promote health and medical tourism, but as yet it sees little real involvement or commitment from more than a handful of clinics and spas, the majority have lost interest and need to see movement from the government other than political speeches.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Tourism sees health services as one of the categories for providing increasing income for the country, and sees potential for spas and clinics in Bogota, Cali, and Medellin. As yet it is slow progress, with a lot of work to do to get facilities up to the standard that international health and medical tourists now expect. Only when that is achieved, can the country begin to market itself as a serious destination.
Address Info
South America
Presidency of the Republic of Colombia
Casa de Nariño: Carrera 8 No.7-26; Administrative Building: Calle 7 No.6-54. Bogotá D.C., Colombia
Commutator: +57 1 562 9300
Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. a 5:45 p.m.
Complains Line: 01 8000 913666