If not for the exponential growth of medical tourism in our country, the number of inbound tourists to Malaysia would have been lesser in recent years.
In 2017, over a million foreigners visited Malaysia for medical tourism, and these include accompanying family members and friends. Together, they spent RM1.3 billion, and revenue is expected to reach RM2.8 billion by next year, a year-on-year growth of 30 percent!
Apart from the Klang Valley, Penang and Melaka were also popular destinations for medical tourists. This was not lost by Sarawak, as its Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports established a Medical Tourism Coordination Committee last November.
Sabah is now jumping on the bandwagon but should not settle for “better late than never”. In fact, any state could leapfrog others with some astute moves by not only diverting medical tourists heading to other states but also attracting those that could have gone to other countries.
But first, it must understand and get the terminologies right. The proposed health tourism council should be named Sabah Healthcare Travel Council (SHTC), modelled after the national level Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) without having to reinvent the wheel.
SHTC would then be able to hit the ground running to increase promotions of medical facilities in the state by taking a leaf from MHTC, and the state’s tourist attractions from Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry.
For tourists traveling on business or leisure, tour operators could create the most suitable itineraries comprising transportation on air, land or sea, accommodation, meals, shows, sightseeing and shopping, and these tour packages offer great value for money.
But it would be a mistake to assume tour operators could handle medical tourists just as well, as it is beyond obtaining information from hospitals and medical care providers or providing transport from airport to hotel and then for treatment.
Nearly all travel and tour industry personnel would be at sea when it comes to medical knowledge needed to excel in business, or in-depth information regarding hospitals, management and medical specialists.
This is where healthcare travel facilitators come in. They are much like junket operators that facilitate the rich to travel and gamble at casinos through a network of agents, known as sub-junkets. Interestingly, high-rollers account for more than 70 percent of a casino’s revenue.
Healthcare travel facilitators are highly respected by the community they serve, and by insurance companies that spend huge sums of money on medical treatment for their insured, and a lot of money is saved whenever patients take up offers to travel overseas for treatment cum holiday.
Healthcare travel facilitators gain the confidence of medical tourists with their incisive medical knowledge, dealings with hospital’s management, engagement with specialist doctors and are instrumental in making the best recommendations by putting everything together.
As such, one of the first tasks SHTC could do is to organise a training seminar in Kota Kinabalu for healthcare travel facilitators and inviting several foreign and local successful practitioners as speakers.
The aim is to increase and support the pool of healthcare travel facilitators, and participants must include those from overseas. Foreign participants could inspect local facilities, meet medical personnel and return home with greater confidence in arranging for medical tourists to Sabah.
It is similar to inviting foreign tour operators to Sabah for familiarisation tours and foreign facilitators could meet up with local tour operators that could later provide transfers and tours for medical tourists and their entourage.
But it would be a mistake to assume Sabah tour operators would be keen to attend healthcare travel facilitator workshops. When I was a trainer in one of these workshops for MHTC in 2014, none of the participants came from the travel industry.
As such, the health tourism council in Sabah should not be tourism-heavy or limited to academic discussions based on input by the members. Much of medical tourism in Sabah is already on autopilot and will continue to grow unabated.
Sabah, or any other state, that wishes to embark on exploiting the full potential of medical tourism is likely to face teething problems after setting up a coordinating body. While it is going through the learning curve, Sarawak is likely to race ahead.
Its Medical Tourism Coordination Committee was established last November and all the chinks in the armor must have been identified and addressed by now. While modern medicine is based on scientific facts, marketing medical tourism effectively requires novel methods.
Any destination that adopts the holistic approach will win over medical tourists, just like holistic medicine heals a patient in body, mind and spirit. And the red carpet has already been rolled out to all visitors in Visit Sarawak 2019.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
