Editor’s Note: The following two stories republished with permission from Travel Market Report, an online business publication for professional travel sellers. For a free subscription, click here. Travelmarketreport.com – Nick Verrastro Medical travel has representation in the Obama administration’s new travel and tourism strategy, with the appointment of Steven Thompson, chief executive officer, Johns Hopkins Medicine International, to the US Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. Thompson is one of a 32-member board, which advises the Commerce Department on policies and issues affecting travel and tourism. “I enthusiastically accepted the appointment due to the important and growing demand for US education and health services coming from the international community,” Thompson told Travel Market Report. “The adoption of travel policies that encourage and support growth in international travel is vital to these business sectors within our economy.” Thompson is not the first representative from the medical travel sector to serve on the board. Dr. David Hayes, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic, served on a previous board. “The Department of Commerce recognizes the important role that medical travel and educational travel and tourism play in strengthening our economy,” said Mara Lee, deputy director of Communications in the Department’s International Trade Administration. Commenting on Thompson’s appointment to the Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, she said that it “signals the Department’s continued recognition of the value that medical and educational travel and tourism contributes to US exports.”