Hoteliers seeking new business opportunities should look at medical tourism, particularly now that healthcare reform is changing the landscape of medical care as we know it. While most of the hospitality industry is struggling to regain health, hotels associated with medical tourism seem to be thriving. And, according to a recent study by Deloitte, the medical tourism industry is expected to achieve 35-percent annual growth in coming years.

The reasons, according to Deloitte, are increases in:

• Demand for outpatient and cosmetic surgery;
• Globalization of the U.S. workforce;
• Access to low-cost global transportation;
• A higher profile of medical tourism offerings through employers and health plans struggling to live with tighter margins resulting from healthcare reform. Several insurers have launched medical tourism pilot programs within their health benefits plans.
• Government support from host countries that see medical tourism as a growth industry.

Abbe Bendell, senior vice president and chief executive officer of Jackson International Hospital in Miami, defines medical tourism as “traveling across borders for effective healthcare, either abroad or from state to state.” It involves “normally effective procedures and/or emergencies,” she adds.

Bendell notes tourism ministries consider medical tourism a good way to bring people and money into their countries; at the same time, “We have a lot of medical tourism coming in from Central and South America and the Caribbean.”

Her hospital recommends appropriate local hotels and has a department dedicated to supporting families of patients. Among the criteria a hotel must meet: transportation facilities, reasonable rates, cleanliness, a good neighborhood and positive guest feedback.

The ultimate impact of healthcare reform remains to be seen, but at least one health official suggests it will result in more business for hospitals—and by extension, hotels—abroad.

“With Obamacare, I think people may be willing to travel to get good healthcare,” predicts Daniel Smigelski, vice president of American Hospital Management Company, a hospital management and administration outsourcing company with offices in Panama and Washington, DC. “If the country is on track with healthcare reform, there will be waiting lines.”

AHMG operates hospitals in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Antigua and Panama, and has hospitals under contract in Libya, Ghana and North Africa. Smigelski notes the U.S. is still the biggest medical tourism market in the world, citing such magnet institutions as the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, and Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore. But he speculates that the domestic market will suffer: “I see problems with healthcare in the U.S., with costs going up; we are adding millions of new patients and not adding new doctors.”

Preparing for Medical Tourism
The growth of the hotel meetings and conferences market, which began 50 years ago, may be mimicked by medical tourism, suggests Dan Cormany, a doctoral student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The hotel meeting and conference market now accounts for 35 percent of all hotel revenue in the U.S., Cormany wrote in the February 2009 issue of Medical Tourism magazine. He suggests medical tourism holds similar long-term promise for hotels.

The traveler seeking more serious medical attention seeks a hotel just before treatment and for a longer time during convalescence, he writes. Such “aftercare” lodging differs from the norm and raises several staff considerations:

• Sensitizing staff through interpersonal communications training;
• Reviewing legal, medical and safety protocol, including coordinated medical response for emergencies;
• Preparing staff to modify or augment regular services. These might include customized, individualized housekeeping schedules, offering personal shopping services, providing a masseuse, a cosmetologist, even a butler responsive to medical needs.

“People are making much better-informed and better decisions about their healthcare,” says Bruce Fairchild, regional director of operations for Sunstone Hotels and general manager of the International Hotel/Kahler Grand Hotel in Rochester, MN, home to the Mayo Clinic, “especially people who are having complications and travel more and more to regional centers.

“We are not a hospital,” Fairchild notes, “but more outpatient procedures are being performed, which requires more dependency on the hotel.”

For example, a Kahler bellman wheels patients to their first appointment to overcome a fear of “where am I and how am I going to get there,” he says. Also easing the pain: enclosed walkways connecting the lodging facilities to shopping and dining.

Fairchild downplays the impact of outbound medical tourism, saying, “Our business has been strong and the U.S. has been the number-one destination in the world for years.

“The best part of our business is we are taking care of people who really appreciate our service.”

Meeting the Needs of an Emerging Market
Some personal observations: While the medical tourism segment is among the most sophisticated, hospitality comes naturally to hoteliers, so think broader and deeper.

Years ago, I learned from the bus tour segment that two elderly women don’t mind sharing a room—but don’t want to share a bar of soap. Consequently, it became policy to provide two bars of soap for these particular double-occupancy travelers. Be it guests with severe medical demands or a National Football League team requiring a “taping room,” hospitality is what we do.

One key is staff training. Staff needs to understand guest needs, conditions and post-treatment requirements. It also needs to understand legal dos and don’ts.

Other requirements of a medical tourism-friendly hotel:

• 24-hour roomservice;
• Variable housekeeping schedules;
• Extended shopping services;
• Transportation to/from the medical facility;
• Availability of masseuses, cosmetologists, personal butlers and concierges;
• A dietitian on staff;
• Secluded rooms.

In addition, your property must conform to the procedure in which the associated hospital specializes, i.e., dental, cosmetics or heart surgery. Among considerations are outdoor garden settings, private entrances, totally accessible rooms with universal remote controls, air-conditioning, wireless Internet, availability of two-room suites to accommodate families, and exercise facilities.

Also critical: all-inclusive pricing as at a resort, along with cooperative marketing between the hotel and the associated medical facility. The all-inclusive component is required because insurers and patients have to know how to budget. It mitigates the financial uncertainty associated with travel.

The medical tourism market is in many U.S. markets untapped and underutilized. Once established via an affiliation with a medical treatment center in your area, i.e. regional hospital or an outpatient plastic surgery clinic etc., this market can be a remedy to your bottom line.

Long-time lodging industry expert Stephen P. Taylor CHA, is vice president in the Miami office of Hunter Hotels. He has written on real estate, branding, operations and technology. Reach him at steve.taylor@hunterhotels.com, (561) 575-6590 or at his website: www.hunterhotels.com

A Medical Tourism Primer
Millions of patients travel to other countries for medical tourism each year.

Deloitte estimates that as many as 1.6 million Americans could be traveling in 2012 for medical tourism, spending billions of dollars.

In the summer of 2009 a series of MTA surveys found:

• 83 percent of patients traveled with a companion.
• 70 percent of patients rated their medical care as excellent.
• 90 percent of patients or their companions engaged in tourism activities.
• 85 percent of U.S. patients found they received more personalized medical care than in the U.S.
• 86 percent of U.S. patients said they would travel again overseas for medical care
• 71 percent of insurance companies and employers thought healthcare reform would have a positive effect on the medical tourism industry.

Source: Medical Tourism Association