Greece the birthplace of democracy,
The place that our common values of the European civilization took, for the first time, its real meaning.

In the ancient city states the man transformed to a free person with rights and obligations and became a citizen.

At the same time 2500 years ago, Greece gave birth to the art of hydrotherapy which bloomed in the Aegean Sea and later it was spread all over Europe. The curative natural resources of our country offered to the mankind “the divine gifts of health, well-being and vigor.”

The Ancient Greeks loved to use spas. The first observer of these healing resources was the historian Herodotus on the 5th century bc. He described some natural resources and by his experience said that the therapeutic procedure must be done in certain seasons and for 21 consecutive days.

Hippocrates the father of the medical science from the island of kos, was the first who wrote about healing of diseases using water. He used water extensively, both internally and externally in treating illnesses of all kinds.

Till now, many thermal springs in Greece are located in, or next to archeological monuments of ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

Now hydrotherapy is back in the form of thermal tourism. We have 124 thermal natural resources officially recognized by the Greek Ministry of Tourism for their healing virtues. Most of them are in the mainland, in beautiful landscapes. These hydrotherapy units which affect the cultural environment of their region, are the key to economic development of the local communities and are related to the local history and tradition. Our hydrotherapy centers offer all forms of hydrotherapy and have 1 million unique visitors per year. Balneotherapy, mineral water drinking therapy, inhalation therapy, Clay therapy, climatotherapy and thallaso-therapy.

The development of health tourism has been a strategic choice and one of the main priorities of national and regional tourism policy in Greece.

As a consequence the participation in the European Historic Thermal Towns Association gave us the opportunity to be part of a strong network of partnerships between towns and spas; to be promoted as network of thermal destinations on a European level and achieve support for European programs; and to promote analytics and statistics within the spa industry.

I believe that Greece (a country with very strong touristic development) plays an important role to support the network in terms of scientific research, of lobbying and in exchange of good practices. Collaboration between us and common strategy is the only way to develop and to promote the European thermalism globally.