Developments in medical tourism in the Caribbean
From IMTJ (International Medical Travel Journal)
Bahamas, Bermuda, Caymans, Jamaica, Turks And Caicos
Although medical tourism in the Caribbean consists more of outbound trips to the USA than inbound business, several countries are seeking to develop local business.
In the Bahamas, American World Clinics (AWC) are still to decide which island is the best first one for new hospitals for medical tourists, expatriates and local patients seeking a US standard of medicine and medical care. AWC already operates in Barbados, and is looking at the Canary Islands and Uruguay. The company works closely with local governments in developing their hospitals on a public-private partnership model.
The Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) has been actively exploring medical tourism. It is offering a new prostate treatment in Bermuda that is not yet available in the USA. An increase in medical tourism has been good for local hotels, with 1,000 hotel bookings a direct result of the new prostate treatment. Bermuda is upgrading its hospitals to make them more modern and more appealing to tourists. They are looking to add dental and cosmetic surgery.
Jamaica has approved a new hospital built by local doctors in a public-private partnership in St. James, as the government looks to encourage medical tourism industry.
The first total hip replacement procedure performed in the Turks and Caicos Islands was a success and establishes the country as a medical tourism destination. A team of overseas doctors from Global MedChoices (GMC) performed the first total hip replacement at the Cheshire Hall Medical Facility on Providenciales. In all, five patients were brought to the island by GMC. InterHealth Canada contracted the surgeon through Global MedChoices, a US based medical tourism agency. The plan now is to fly in more patients from the USA and Canada, to be treated by flown in Canadian and US doctors. InterHealth Canada runs two hospitals on the islands.
The government of the Cayman Islands spends a fifth of its annual budget on healthcare. Dr. Devi Shetty’s new Health City Cayman Islands, currently being built in East End, will reduce the amount of overseas travel for medical procedures. The need to travel overseas for healthcare has been a drain on both the government and private individuals’ purses for many years. For the year ending June 2011, the cost of overseas healthcare claims incurred under the official insurance programmes for treatment off-island for civil servants, veterans and seamen, indigents and other residents covered by the government’s insurance company was almost $30 million, almost all in Florida hospitals.
Health City Cayman Islands is ahead of schedule and the site is on track for its expected completion in February 2014. The construction of the first phase, which consists of four linked buildings that make up a single complex, is being done on 14 acres of the site, which could eventually cover 200 acres. The first patients are expected to be admitted to the 140-bed hospital in March 2014.It will specialize in cardiac surgery, cardiology and orthopedics. Indian hospital group Narayana Hrudayalaya is partnered by Ascension Health Alliance, the largest private not for profit health network in the United States.
While many of these new hospitals and clinics claim to be aimed at medical tourists, the first effect is likely to be a reduction in the number travelling to hospitals in the USA and elsewhere. So whether the number of new inbound medical tourists will be higher than the reduction in outbound medical tourists across the Caribbean is an interesting question. Overseas investors may well make a long-term profit from developing hospitals, if they can get the locals and expatriates to use them. Getting profit just from increased inbound medical tourism is a major challenge.
For more on this story go to:
http://www.imtj.com/news/?entryid82=420236
Related story
The medical tourism niche… good news or bad news?
From IMTJ (International Medical Travel Journal)
Ian Youngman has been studying the broader aspects of global tourism, and is fascinated to see the number and variety of existing and new market niches that exist. So, where does medical tourism rank as a tourism niche?
Many of you will have heard of religious tourism and eco-tourism; some of you will be familiar with sports tourism, food tourism, film tourism, or dark tourism. Each has risen from nowhere to earn the destinations that promote them a substantial income. On a global scale, many of these tourism niches are substantially larger than medical tourism.
I am ploughing through scores of tourism reports for a major research project. When medical tourism does get a mention, it is usually ion the context of health and spa tourism. In one 500 pages plus tome, medical tourism did get a mention in a footnote on page 490!
This does not mean that medical tourism is not an important and growing niche. But it does mean that when selling the concept to governments and travel authorities it is easy to overplay your hand.
How small a niche?
Let’s take an example. In a recent article that that Germany gets 70,000 medical travellers a year, making it one of the major destinations in Europe. The official number of international travellers to Germany in 2011 was 28.35 million – 2013 projections are over 30 million. So medical tourism is 0.23% of the total.
Let’s take another. The Turkish Department of Health reports 262,000 health tourists to Turkey in 2012 (not use of health, not medical) out of a total of 32 million tourists. So, health tourism is 0.8% of tourism activity.
So, medical tourism is clearly a very small niche in terms of the tourism sector. And thus of relatively little importance to many governments and tourism board.
The advantages of being niche
The tourism niches I mentioned in my introduction are valuable market niches because:
Not all countries offer them.
Only certain destinations within that country offer them.
Only certain countries are targeted.
Only certain people are targeted.
The average age, class, spending value and characteristic of the niche customer are well understood by the travel trade.
By comparison, medical tourism lags behind in its understanding of the niche. With a fragmented market that has no dominant players either globally or even in any one country, medical tourism is a market with hundreds of hotels, hospitals, clinics and agencies all seeking to make money.
Within medical tourism, the areas that have performed consistently well in the last few years are the niches of dental, fertility and cosmetic; and regional niches such as Africans seeking major surgery in countries with better health facilities.
This is where many go wrong. They send the same marketing message to people who are well-off and seek high price luxury cosmetic care as they do to the bottom of the price range people needing heart surgery; as they do to the middle range people who want to save money but on a short dental trip.
The message here is that medical tourism a small niche within global tourism. AND, it is itself made up of many sub-niches which each have different target markets and offerings. It is a very complex market. Those seeking to sell “medical tourism ‘ as a concept are struggling against how modern tourism is sold.
What does the modern global tourism market say about how things are changing? A few sound bites:
The old methods of national advertising campaigns and a presence at trade fairs are giving way to online and social media.
Countries and destinations have to prepare for the short-term impact of natural disasters and political changes.
There are rapid but long-term shifts in where travellers come from and go to.
Targeting cut-price budget travellers risks breakneck competition and unprofitable investments that never pay off.
Many countries keep targeting the “old markets” of America and Europe rather than the developing markets of Asia, Russia, China and Latin America.
Demand and profiling segmentation within target countries is essential.
Countries should identify key areas and core capabilities that differentiate it from competitors.
A positive attitude from government is vital.
Bringing down visa barriers to entry is essential.
Online reviews offer travellers total transparency in price versus quality.
None of the above sound bites are my words; these are just a few random picks from travel experts. If you look at them, all apply equally to medical tourism, but do not reflect what many medical tourism countries actually do.
Those that ‘get’ the volatility and fast changing nature of medical tourism marketing… and apply the skills to growing it, will succeed. Those that do not will fall away. As brokers warn when selling investments – “Past performance is no guide to future prosperity.”
See also iNews Cayman story published May16 2013 “International Medical Tourism Chamber of Commerce – A medical tourism trade body” at:
