Maui’s
residents are truly blessed to live on a beautiful island.
The world agrees: For the 17th year, Maui
Island was voted by Conde Nast Traveler magazine readership as the “Best Island
in the World”. Also, Maui was voted “Best U.S. Island” for 21 glorious times.
Other destinations cannot compete on natural
beauty as the leading factor to attract high-spending visitors. However, other
cities or regions are not sitting still. One area that has emerged as a
revenues-booster and jobs creator is medical tourism.
For example, one famous hospital that attracts
patients from Western Europe, Middle East, North America, and the nouveau riche
of Vietnam, Mainland China, India – over 200 countries -- is in Bangkok,
Thailand. Bumrungrad International is an internationally accredited,
multi-specialty hospital. After its launch 30 years ago, it is now the largest
private hospital in Southeast Asia with over 500 beds and 30 specialty centers
(and serviced apartments connected to the hospital). Bumrungrad offers diagnostic,
therapeutic and intensive care facilities in a one-stop medical center, and now
serves over a million patients annually, nearly half non-Thai citizens.
Having toured Bumrungrad, I can confirm that I
had no problems communicating in English with the front office, nurses, and
doctors. The special draw of hospitals like Bumrungrad is that a major
operation in the U.S. like a liver transplant or other surgical procedures will
cost much, much less.
My Japanese friends have flown twice to
Thailand, paid for implants and crowns, and enjoyed several days
accommodations/meals at a 5-star Phuket beach-front hotel – and the total price
was still less than having identical treatment in Tokyo. (You start to get the
picture for the Maui economy – throw in a rehabilitation vacation with family
members, and this visit boosts revenues for hotels, restaurants, airlines.)
On the other side of the Pacific, Virginia
Mason Hospital in Seattle, Washington State, is a mirror image of Bumrungrad.
It offers a hotel adjacent to the hospital where family members can stay, easy
access to interpreters, even special food (Thai peanut salad is on the hospital
menu). This hospital has specialties including cancer, digestive issues, and
cardiology. Aside from Americans, Virginia Mason Hospital attracts Latin
American, South Korean, and Canadian patients – for these individuals, the draw
is an all-in-one center that relieves the stress for the entire family.
Affluence, lack of medical options in one’s
own country, no waiting lines, access to a vacation afterwards for
mental/physical healing – these are all factors for traveling half-way across
the world for medical treatment.
Although U.S. medical centers have top staff
and facilities, there has been a rise of Americans leaving the U.S. for medical
treatment, from crossing the border into Mexico for dental work or knee surgery
at Raffles Hospital in Singapore or even procedures at hospitals in India,
believe it or not.
Can Maui fulfill a “niche” in medical tourism?
Perhaps sports medicine? Addiction problems? Isn’t Maui a location for health
and wellness – all those people running in Wailea, even along the cane fields
to Kahuk\lui? Or even cosmetic surgery? (Some Southeast Asian and Brazilian
hospitals have specialties for the eternal “Fountain of Youth” surgical
procedures, and attract high-paying crowd for excellent revenue streams.)
World-class medical centers also benefit the
local population, as Bumrungrad International Hospital’s nearly half-million
international patients pay higher rates and thereby subsidize the high-tech
equipment costs and U.S./European-trained physicians’ salaries to provide
medical care to local Thai patients (likewise, with the growth of a Maui-based
world-class medical center, Mauians can have access to a wider range of
treatment and surgical procedures rather than traveling out of Maui).
Yet developing a top medical center for
international patients anywhere in the world is not a simple “Fields of Dreams”
metaphor of building a hospital in the cornfields and waiting for the patients
to stream in. Bumrungrad has marketing offices in over 15 cities around the
globe; the innovative hospital has created an extensive “infrastructure” for
making non-Thai patients and their families feel “at home”, in the heart of
Bangkok (even the easy-to-get Thailand visas for Mainland Chinese tourists work
to the advantage of Bangkok hospitals' marketing).
Simply, Maui cannot compete on such large
scale, since the investment is monumental in both facilities and qualified
staff. Yet the combination of Maui as “Best Island in the World” plus a smaller
“niche specialty” world-class medical center and a unique Maui location for the
facility, perhaps adjacent/synergistic to a beach-front 5-star hotel, shall
result in the hiring of qualified Maui nurses, lab technicians, doctors, staff
– and launch a new “medical tourism” market for Maui.
Ray Tsuchiyama
Business & Investment Opportunities
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