Medical Tourism Services

Global Trends in Health and Medical Tourism

Medical Tourism is becoming one of Asia’s fastest growing industries, projected to be worth at least USD 4 billion by 2012. The promise of low-cost, high quality healthcare is attracting more than 1.3 million tourists a year to key locations such as Thailand where a medical tourist spends an average of USD 362 a day, compared with the average traveler’s spending of USD 144. Bangkok Post 2004 Mid-Year Review states that healthcare costs in Thailand are 50 % cheaper than in Singapore, three times cheaper than in Hong Kong, and five to ten times cheaper than in Europe and the USA. A segment of the CBS investigative news program 60 Minutes that aired in September 2005 featured Thailand as the leading medical tourism center where patients were given first-class service at third-world prices.

With the strong and aggressive drive for Thailand to be a regional healthcare hub, The Thai government and also the provincial sectors in Phuket have moved and encouraged Bangkok Hospital Phuket to boost up Phuket being "Health and Wellness Destination".

As a pioneer of medical care in Phuket, Bangkok Hospital Phuket has served both local and foreign communities with international medical standard in world-class facilities at reasonable and affordable price, making it difficult for its closest competitors to follow its success.

The combination of health tourism hub is between beautiful and natural tourism destination, with the international standard of healthcare perspectives. It has no doubt on the beauty of Phuket Island, together with various supporting factors; pristine beaches, delicious Thai & seafood, varieties of entertainment, fun shopping and tropical luxurious spa. Those combinations have made Phuket to the outstanding tourism destination in world map.

Speaking about medical factors, for the definition, which comes from the research in preparation stage, we have found that there are four factors to make destination ready for International Patient Services.

The first factor is the quality of Medial Personal in Thailand, Ministry of Health requires all of them to have the license in order to be able to perform medical services.

Second, is the advance of technology of medical infrastructure that is required for any destination to be Medical Hub in Phuket.

The third factor is International Standard. To make international patients confident in the medical personal, system, and infrastructure, Minister of Health has issued the quality program called Hospital Quality Improvement Accreditation (HA) for every hospital both public and private to ensure and maintain quality in the healthcare services. Some hospitals have processed to more international recognition level such as JCIA (Joint Committee International Accreditation), or to more international standard from various organizations as ISO.

The fourth factor is the service. With the strength of warm nature of Thai people, so called Thainess, together with the advance knowledge, becomes the strength of our medical personal qualified for treating patients around the world.

Escalating medical costs and waiting lists for treatments in both developed and developing countries have led consumers to look for other options away from home.

This, in part, fuels demand. “Come for your surgery and stay for recuperation at a relaxing resort” could be the promotional invitation for a number of destinations offering specialized treatments and relaxing convalescence.

Medical tourism is being actively promoted in Greece, South Africa, Jordan, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. Countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, where healthcare services are being promoted overseas alongside tourist destination, have attracted more than 600,000 patients in 2003. Thailand alone generated some US$280 million in revenues from treating 308,000 foreign patients. In 2002, 109,000 Arab patients traveled to Jordan for medical treatments, with each spending on an average US$5,500, leading to an estimated total US$600 million. Healthcare hospitality projects in the Arab world have the advantage of lower costs compared to those in the US and Europe, which when coupled with high quality service, can attract a large share of patients from the region who seek treatment abroad

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