Effective destination management for medical travel

There is much more to promoting a destination than just issuing a press release, launching a website, or attending a trade fair. Ian Youngman looks at how destination management organisations (DMOs) must change, to build their medical travel market.

Economic recession and Covid-19 has led to many tourism boards, also known as destination management organisations (DMOs), closing or reducing activities. With squeezed budgets and increasing pressure to reduce over-tourism, some local and national governments are seeing DMOs as a cost centre which is an easy win to close.

This is a short-sighted measure however, and for the medical travel sector, DMOs can play a hugely supportive role in building international patient business.

2022: No going back

2022 will focus on the future of international travel and tourism and the likely challenges and the benefits. Tourism is resilient, and has shown it can learn from past experiences (pre-pandemic) and adapt. We now have an ideal opportunity to look ahead.

Dwelling too much on the pre-Covid past however would not be productive, especially because so many industry parameters and social attitudes have been reset. DMOs in medical tourism will struggle if they just revert to 2019.

Innovation through the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, chatbots and improved connectivity overall, will change the face of medical travel dramatically.

Augmented reality adds digital elements to a live view, often by using the camera on a smartphone. Virtual reality implies a complete immersion experience that shuts out the physical world.

Other issues include climate change and broader social challenges, as well as stakeholder attitudes towards equity in health in the communities that it operates in.

DMO’s will need to understand the current worries and concerns of potential customers.

Discover Puerto Rico: getting creative with content

Discover Puerto Rico, the island’s private and non-profit DMO, is opening up its creative studio services for sale to third-party brands, businesses and organisations.

While not an agency and with no plans to become one, it sees opportunities to build content creation offerings to meet the needs of local tourism-focused businesses while simultaneously building Puerto Rico’s destination brand.

The goal is to diversify revenue, while at the same time elevating the destination’s image as a whole to key, off-island audiences, including consumers and travel advisors.

Discover Puerto Rico focuses is on providing video and production services, in the form of digital series, TV ads, and virtual reality from pre to post production.

The criteria for outside brands to be taken on as clients is that they must be promoting Puerto Rico and have aligned strategic values and objectives. This presents a unique opportunity to uplift the quality of the content and messaging of tourism-aligned businesses around the island, in turn boosting Puerto Rico’s brand as a destination.

Discover Puerto Rico does not disclose the fee range for the DMO’s creative services, but they are estimated on a per-project basis or long-term agreement to meet content needs. It offers day rates and will negotiate for a longer term project.

It is planning to reach US$1 million in annual revenue from its studio sales, and expects to reach at least half that in the current fiscal year.

Would it work for a medical travel DMO?

Could this “DMO creative services for hire” concept catch on elsewhere as an alternative revenue stream? It could be seen as a viable future revenue option, and remove the ever present closure threat of those relying on state funding.

Medical tourism destinations, including regions, hospitals, clinics, agencies, hotels, and spas could look to this example to become more creative in what they do in marketing or advertising. By offering specialist services to members, they can increase revenue, may increase membership, and ensure that the quality of member advertising is both excellent and fits in with the overall local strategy.

Whether other DMOs copy the Puerto Rican example, will depend on their business strategy and making this model scalable to their destination.

What does a high-performing DMO deliver?

Earlier this year, the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, published an independent review assessing the role, structure and performance of
DMOs across England.

The de Bois Review looked at the role of DMOs in the modern economy, what needs to be done to simplify the structure of and what role should the government play in the sector.

The key questions answered included what does a high-performing DMO deliver, under what conditions does that arise, and what is the role of the government in creating and maintaining those conditions?

A review found that a high performing DMO should:

• Be actively involved in destination management, not just marketing.
• Be built around the consumer rather than administrative boundaries set by the Government.
• Cover a geographic area with a tourism offer that comes together as a compelling and competitive brand.
• Have a clear strategic, long-term vision for how to develop the destination in line with its key strengths, so it remains competitive and sustainable.
• Act as the broker and/or convener for the tourism sector in the area covered. DMOs should be true partnerships between public, private and community organisations.
• Be a strong and trusted advocate for the tourism sector, bringing relevant stakeholders with them, with a seat at the table when it comes to major decisions about transport, inward investment and more, and able to marshal evidence to illustrate the situation on the ground and the impact of visitor spending.
• Be well integrated with the country’s overall tourism strategy, and have the capacity to deliver grant-funding projects on behalf of central Government if required;
• Be outcome-focused and financially sustainable, not continually fighting for survival or serving as a vehicle to boost individual egos.
• Undertake activities that match the development needs of their destination, ensuring it remains sustainable and competitive. This will vary from DMO to DMO and it almost always involves marketing but that is not the be all and end all. Getting visitors to a destination is just one aspect of developing a competitive and sustainable visitor economy.

Can medical travel organisations and destinations promoting medical tourism honestly answer yes to all the above? Perhaps just one or two around the world.

DMOs: a call to change

DMOs must accept that they have a role in driving change. It cannot just be left to local or national government.

DMOs must take less of a territorial approach and collaborate, as fragmentation holds back effectiveness in acting as advocates for tourism. In some countries there are multiple and competing regional or cluster bodies competing to promote medical tourism.

DMOs also should seek to diversify their income streams and should share and learn from examples of best practice. The could, for example, act as medical travel agents and take a booking fee, just as they do with hotels.

DMOs must increase and update the digital skills of staff. If a DMOs find a way to digitally train people; the next logical step is to train organisations. With few exceptions, the digital operations of most medical tourism agents, clinics, hospitals and destinations are locked in a web and phone based system that is now a decade out of date.

Finally, DMOs should have more diverse boards that fully represent their communities, as well as their businesses and visitors.