What’s the most common mistake that new entrants to the medical tourism market make?

The medical tourism market sees a high degree of churn. Keith Pollard from IMTJ looks at why many new market entrants fail.

How long have we got…?

We’ve been running our consumer portal Treatment Abroad for 13 years. IMTJ was first published in 2008. So, we’ve probably seen it all. The good, the bad and the very ugly. It’s a market in which I’ve seen an incredible amount of churn…. a market where you see new entrants come in, stick around for a year or two, and then depart to be replaced by another new entrant who thinks there’s big money to be made. Whether it’s destinations, hospitals and clinics or agencies and facilitators, we’ve seen far too many enter the market… and fail.

So, why is this? What do they get wrong?

Let’s concentrate on three of the biggest mistakes that I see.

The first mistake, believing the hype.

I’ve written in the past about the medical tourism gold rush. Estimates of the number of medical tourists were in the millions, then the tens of millions. Billions of dollars of revenue could be earned. These claims were repeated online, in marketing campaigns and on conference platforms. Few people questioned these claims. Some went into the market without appreciating the real size of the opportunity and what they might have to invest to be successful.

The second mistake, destinations, hospitals and clinics went looking for medical tourism gold in completely the wrong place! There was no strategy. It was Michael Porter who said: ” The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” In medical tourism, many providers have chosen to do everything, to be all things to all people in all countries. Lack of a clearly defined strategy is a guaranteed recipe for failure in any business. The market we’re provides a clear demonstration of that.

Lastly, putting promotion before product.

Many went into the medical tourism market ill equipped and without getting the product right. They put Promotion before Product. The clarion call of nearly every international healthcare provider is “low cost, high quality”.

Whether you’re new to the market, or you’re an old hand, I think the IMTJ Medical Travel Summit in Croatia has a lot to offer. We’ve attracted an array of speakers who’ve been there and done that. They’ve learned from the mistakes of others, and done most things right. Come to Croatia in April and make sure that you benefit from the knowledge and experience that they have to share.