All the information you will read in this article, is a result of my own experience and research I have done over the last three years.

Word of Mouth Medical Tourism Marketing

Many doctors and hospitals in Guatemala had been attending foreign patients since a long time. Some of them were Guatemalan expatriates who already knew about medical services in Guatemala or who were referred by relatives living in Guatemala. Some of them were foreigners referred by Guatemalan expatriates and others were foreign patients living temporarily in Guatemala and normally recommended to specific doctors by embassies. So basically doctors and hospitals had been using word of mouth marketing.

Medical Tourism in Guatemala. Can it work?

On April 2007, I heard the term, “Medical Tourism”, while developing a market research on the use of websites by small hotels in Guatemala. On the list of subjects to discuss with hotel owners, I decided to include an open-ended question to know what these business people though. I was amazed that all of them were more excited about the Medical Tourism question that about the main subject.

Immediately my priority changed. I wanted to know more and more about Medical Tourism. I formed a small market research team to discover what chances Guatemala had in this industry. This was a qualitative market research, since my interest was to know what american people though about medical tourism in Guatemala.

Some of their answers made me believe there was hope in promoting Guatemala as a medical destination and I decided to go on with the Medical Tourism project. In a future article I will publish the findings I made with that market research.

The Beginning

By the end of 2007 I had all the elements I needed to start a medical tourism facilitator company in Guatemala: One website (www.angelsabroad.com), a group of dentists, two angel investors, two medical tourism guides, a business plan and the will to let the World know that Guatemala has high quality and affordable medical and dental treatments.

By the time I was reviewing the last details to start promoting Angels Abroad and medical tourism in Guatemala, I heard great news: The Guatemalan Association of Wellness and Health Tourism (www.healthwellnessguatemala.com/) was just formed by a non-profit guatemalan organization called Agexport (the association of guatemalan exporters). This medical tourism organization was formed by a group of dentists, physicians, hospitals, hotels and conventional tourism companies. They also asked the government to join their efforts in promoting medical tourism.

Organized Medical Tourism in Guatemala

Since the beginning of 2008 we started officially promoting guatemalan medical services to the World. We started working with 12 dentists and now we have a medical network of 43 physicians. We promote, plastic surgeons, ophthalmologists, dentists, cardiologists, gynecologists, sleep medicine specialist and many more different medical and dental specialties.

We have made strategical partnerships with some american companies to help offer our patients, a wide variety of services like loans for american and canadian patients and follow up services for obesity surgery patients.

For a new country in the Medical Tourism industry, like Guatemala is, marketing efforts have to be a long-term commitment not just for the few medical tourism companies that already exist, but it has to be an effort of all the players involved, like hotels, airlines, physicians, government and everybody that will benefit from this fast-growing industry. Guatemala has much work to do to be recognized as a medical tourism city.

On September 2009, the Guatemalan Exporters Association (AGEXPORT), organized a Service Summit in which medical tourism companies participated. This event was attended by the Medical Tourism Association (MTA), a group of international medical tourism facilitators and well known people in the industry. These kind of events is what Guatemala needs in order to be recognized in the Medical Tourism arena.

Guatemalan Government and Medical Tourism

Unfortunately government efforts to promote Guatemala as a medical destination are still poor.  However there is a good will to promote Guatemala in the Medical Tourism industry and I’ve seen some concrete actions.  Besides participating in World Medical Tourism Congresses, organized by the MTA (Medical Tourism Association), the Guatemalan government,  has sponsored some Medical Tourism seminars in Guatemala. One of them was hosted by a Cuban doctor.  To me it was a great experience to learn about the big success of Cuba on the Medical Tourism industry. We learned about their marketing strategies and about some interesting statistics.  For example, the main medical specialty requested by foreign patients is Neurology, with a 38% of the medical requests. And most of their foreign patients are from Canada, Mexico and Germany.

We are going to have to wait some time for a government’s budget increase for Medical Tourism. Luckily we live in the Information Age where any company can promote itself through the Internet. It doesn’t matter if it’s a little company or big corporation. Budget for Internet promotion is very low and with some creativity there is a lot that can be accomplished. From my experience 99% of patients that have contacted us, did it because they found about Angels Abroad, through pay-per-click advertisement or a Google search.

2010: Good expectations for Medical Tourism industry’s growth in Guatemala

On December 2009 there were at least 5 medical tourism companies in Guatemala. Most of them formed in 2009. These are great news for Guatemala. Most of these new companies were formed by Guatemalan doctors. They already know about the experience to treat a foreign patient.  Now they will have to learn something new and that is the way to market their clinics in a more direct way to international patients and not just by word of mouth marketing. They will learn also that foreign patients need quick responses for their medical inquires and constant follow up, making necessary the creation of an international department.

There is one main goal, medical tourism companies in Guatemala should set for 2010, and that is:

Let people know that there is a country called Guatemala that besides having beautiful natural resources and colonial and Mayan cities,  it has Board Certified doctors, surgeons and dentists with much experience, some of them trained in USA and European countries and that hospitals in Guatemala had invested millions of US dollars to offer state of the art medical technology.

How can medical tourism companies can achieve this goal? For 2010, my advise is: Networking. There are many companies around the World promoting medical tourism. Some of them offer free listings in their web sites. Some of them charge a yearly fee and some will promote clinics be negotiating a percentage on the medical price. Medical Tourism companies in Guatemala should look for partnerships with other medical tourism companies that had been promoting other countries for a long time.

By getting listed in these companies’ web sites, medical tourism companies should use as many graphical resources as they can, such as pictures and videos. They have to show in these pictures and videos, the technology used, the hospital rooms, the clinic and to be more convincing about the medical background, show pictures of university degree and international certifications. People have to find a way to feel confident and information is crucial to achieve this.

If people around the World, look for medical/dental procedures over the Internet and every time they look, Guatemala is listed as an option for the medical procedure they are interested in, they will notice and they will  be interested in getting more information. Try it for yourself. Make a search on Google, looking for “Affordable spine surgery”. You will be surprised by the results. It looks like India has been doing their homework very good in promoting themselves as a very affordable option for spine surgery.

There is a lot to do to convince people, Guatemala is a great option for affordable healthcare, but remember, If there’s a will there’s a way.

Hello

I hope you enjoy these articles or at least you take some time to comment, either you agree or not with me. So let´s begin.

What is Medical Tourism? Sometimes this concept tends to confuse people. From my experience, I can tell you that some people think Medical Tourism is a group of doctors traveling to a poor country to help people in the need of medical care. To some of them it simply does not make sense to mix medical treatments (Medical) with pleasure (Tourism).

But really, what is medical tourism? To put it simple, it refers to people traveling for medical or dental (Dental Tourism) purposes, from a region where they are currently living to another region. That could be from one town to another town in the same country or from one country to another country.

You could be thinking now, “Ok. That explains the Medical part of Medical Tourism. Now, what about the Tourism part?”. Well, exactly this is the part of the expression that confuse people. Sometimes people that travel for medical or dental treatments have time to tour the city or nearby tourist attractions, but that is not always the case.

People that have contacted me, interested in coming to Guatemala for medical treatments, asked me specifically Not to include tours. They just want to have surgery, stay in Guatemala for as long as they need to be able to return home in a safe way.

It doesn’t matter if some people refer to Medical Tourism as Health Tourism, Medical Trips, Medical Journeys or whatever. The point is that the term, Medical Tourism, is now recognized by the big players in this industry. In fact there is already a non lucrative organization that has coined the expression in their own company’s name. Of course, I am referring to the MTA or Medical Tourism Association ( www.medicaltourismassociation.com ).

So, Medical Tourism exists since a very long time. In the recent years it has become a boom. This is because hospitals had been doing marketing efforts to attract foreign patients and many companies have been formed, dedicated to attend these kind of patients.

There are some reasons for people to travel for medical and dental treatments. The patients that had come to Guatemala had done it for 3 reasons:

1. Money. They have saved between 50 and 80% on dental and medical treatments.
2. Lack of specialists or technology. Some people came because in the region they live there are no specialized doctors or there is few or no investment on medical technology.
3. Law regulation. Patients came because in the country where they live, government has prohibited the medical treatment they are looking for.

There are more reasons why people travel to get medical treatments. In my experience the most common reason, is that patients want to save money. Sometimes thousands of US dollars.

For now, I hope, I’ve answered the question “What is Medical Tourism?”. Please leave your comments or questions. I will be glad to discuss any subject associated to Medical Tourism.

Best Regards,

Hugo Guzmán
CEO
Angels Abroad
www.angelsabroad.com
hugo.guzman@angelsabroad.com