Medical Services for Travel Agencies  

As a travel consultant, you can add value to the service you offer your clients by referring them to International Travel Health Consultants for a pre-travel medical visit. By taking advantage of the service facilities and products offered by ITHC, you will be able to:

• Save precious time discussing health matters, which you may not be comfortable with
• Fulfill your legal and ethical obligation to give health recommendations
• Provide your clients with outstanding travel medicine service and guaranteed up-to-date advice
• Ensure that your clients have a healthy trip and want to travel with you again

• Travel is Meant to Be Fun and Healthy Travelers Have More Fun...
  We are sure you will be convinced of the benefits of referring your clients to ITHC for their pre-travel preparation. Our facilities are conveniently located in Poughkeepsie and New York, New York. We encourage you to explore our services by personally visiting the ITHC facility nearest you.

  Benefits To The Traveler
  Regardless of whether travelers are going for business or pleasure, singly or in groups, a visit to an ITHC facility will ensure the best pre-travel preparation.

  Benefits To The Travel Agent
  A traveler who remains healthy during travel will be encouraged to travel again. If a traveler is pleased with the recommendations of the agent he/she will be more likely to use the agent again. With frequency of travel at an all time high, and with the reemergence of tropical diseases due to climactic and demographic reasons, it behooves the travel agent to make a recommendation to the traveler to obtain pre-travel advice.

  The travel industry has a special opportunity to add value to their services by promoting the positive aspects of preventative travel health. The alternative to agents providing positive health assistance is for clients to avoid travel due to unknown risks.

  Prior to the emergence of travel medicine as a medical specialty during the 1980s, many in the travel industry believed if an agent suggested that a client schedule a visit to the doctor prior to a trip, the client might view the suggestion negatively - so negatively, perhaps, that the traveler might even cancel the trip for fear of catching some incurable, exotic disease. As the first line of information for travelers, travel agents have historically advised travelers when passports and yellow fever vaccinations are required for entry to a country, but have avoided bringing up health risks. This has changed.

  Recently, the International Society of Travel Medicine, ASTA, Association of Canadian Travel Agents, USTOA, Delta Airlines, Air Canada and Society for the Advancement of Travel for the Handicapped joined in a consensus statement :

  • Advise clients of inoculations required/recommended for their destinations.
  • Suggest getting professional health advise on recommended prophylaxis.
  • Warn of the presence of Malaria in a country.

  Pre-Travel Preparation: Travel Medicine is MORE than ‘SHOTS’
  At ITHC, the pre-travel consultation focuses on recommended vaccinations (by the Center for Disease Control), required vaccinations, pills, other preventative means and health education for the traveler.

  At ITHC, we are updated on a daily basis on disease outbreaks worldwide so that our clients are provided with the best possible advice.

  Direct Support
  ITHC also provides phone support to travel agents. We welcome brief inquiries from travel consultants to answer specific questions that a traveler may ask prior to visiting ITHC. Please note, however, that ITHC's reception staff is not medically trained and cannot give medical advice, i.e. recommendations. If the doctor is busy consulting when you call, leave your name and number and the doctor will return your call. You can e-mail questions to: ITHC@globaltraveler.com

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  You may register with ITHC using our online registration form.