Dearest friends, colleagues and conference delegates,

I am absolutely delighted to announce that the next Asia Pacific Travel Health Society will hold its 2026 conference in Hong Kong from March 25th to 28th March. Some of you may recall that one of the first few conferences of the Asia Pacific Travel Health Society was held here. Hence it is wonderful to welcome you all back there.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a difficult time for all of us and it has taken not just the medical fraternity, but also the general public a while to recover from the same. We as a society have grown and taken this in our stride and gained new perspectives as to how a pandemic can impact travel. The travel medicine community has also had to adapt to dynamic changing border control policies, rule and regulations while adding on a knowledge base to newer diseases like COVID-19, Mpox to their armamentarium. The pandemic has now also re-ignited a passion for traveling again with travel now reaching pre-pandemic levels.

Travel Medicine has indeed evolved from its inception, with new layers of complexity being added each year. From initially being a specialty aimed at protecting those in the temperate regions when they travel to the tropics, the ease of “International travel” has changed this paradigm completely. The concept of recreational travel is now popular even in middle to low income countries who often travel to high income countries for business or leisure. So “reverse travel medicine” has also begun and brings into prominence diseases and situations that are unique i.e., language barriers, cultural enigmas, inadvertent high medical expenses etc.

Many innovations now include tele-consultations, remote monitoring, artificial intelligence and machine learning for pre travel and post travel consultations, personalized precision medicine and genomics. Hence, we would like to welcome you all to our 15th annual conference with a theme of “Navigating global changes: Innovations in Travel Medicine. The rich scientific program that we have planned will expand on many of these contemporary topics, supplemented with pre-conference workshops and seminars, covering common travel conundrums; high altitude, wilderness and expedition medicine and the ABC workshops for the beginners and those looking to set up travel clinics.

On behalf of the local organizing and scientific committees, I look forward to welcoming you to Hong Kong in March 2026.

Priscilla Rupali, APTHC 2026 President