NEW YORK CITY, New York -- As part of our ongoing coverage of Caribbean Week New York, Travel Agent sat down Tuesday with Yolande Bain-Horsford, Grenada's minister of tourism and civil aviation, and Rudy W. Grant, CEO of the Grenada Tourism Authority, and learned of Grenada's bold plans to capitalize on medical tourism.
Bain-Horsford told us groundbreaking is expected to begin later this year on a new, roughly $1 billion health and wellness facility that will cater to travelers recovering from surgery or other medical procedures that require some bed rest.
"After the new Sandals (LaSource Grenada) opened up recently, we started to see a different clientele, a much younger clientele, coming to Grenada," says Bain-Horsford. "We think this facility is perfect for that type of clientele, that type of traveler."
Envisionation, a development company that specializes in sustainable solutions for Small Island States, has entered into an agreement with the Government to develop the destination’s first signature medical tourism facility, The Mount Hartman Medical Park.
The Government is collaborating by providing a 200-acre site that overlooks Secret Harbour. The site adjoins a sister development where luxury Setai & Aman boutique hotels are to be built. This site includes a bridge to an adjacent private island that offers some of the finest private residence sites in the entire Caribbean.
The advent of a world-class teaching hospital and additional specialist medical facilities is expected to bring considerable economic benefits and confirm Grenada as a desireable retirement destination. It is expected that this will lead to a demand for nursing homes and end-of-life care, which will generate additional healthcare demand.
The Mount Hartman Medical Park will be landscaped to create an environment that delivers an ambience of wellness and calm. On one side, it adjoins the Grenada National Park Dove Sanctuary and the site includes nearly one mile of waterfront. Patients electing to come to Grenada for their treatment will be able to stay in rooms with impressive views and then to enjoy their recovery in hotels that are equipped to support them with spa facilities that will deliver the final touches to the holistic wellness experience.
Grant told us there will be a hotel component included in the project, but it will not cater toward leisure travel as the entire park is meant for rehabilitation.
"We're not sure if this will be a branded hotel or not, or exactly how many rooms, but we don't intend for the hotel to be for the lesiure traveler," says Grant. "The focus here is solely on rehabiliation."
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