Who are your nearest competitors in inbound health and medical tourism?

So why would you want to work with them?

Competitors

You may have much more in common than your rivals then you think. If they are local by region or city, then you are all competing not just against other countries, but against other regions and cities.

The traditional approach is to fight each other on price, promotions, ideas and publicity. But unless you are a large organization, your spending power- and effect – is unlikely to be very big.

Social media

Yes, using social media for marketing is useful. But hotel consultants now agree that spending time and money on Facebook or Twitter helps raise your profile, but as every other hotel has an Internet and social media presence, then it does little on its own to bring in bookings. The same logic applies to clinics and hospitals. So having a social media presence and writing a few blogs may make you feel good, but can never replace proper advertising, marketing and research.

Clutter

The 24/7 world means that potential customers are bombarded with information from so many sources. This makes it much harder for your voice to be heard by potential customers. It also makes it harder to decide which advertising and marketing methods work. And what worked in 2013 may be a failure in 2015.

Exchanging information

Extracting useful information from the wall of sound and vision around you is harder every day. So it makes sense for competitors to join forces to do proper research and exchange ideas.

Research

Unless you are a large organization you cannot afford the time and money to do detailed research into your potential markets. The MT world is littered with the bodies of companies that thought there was a large customer base just itching to go to them, if only they could get to them. Many failed, as the market was not as big as talked up. Others failed as they thought offering low prices and getting some form of accreditation would do the trick; price is low down the list of facts that influence buyers while I have never seen any evidence that accreditation brings in a single extra customer.

So it makes sense to find out what the real market potential is, and how to get at it. Working with rivals can make that possible.

Why work together?

If the potential market is static or declining, it makes little sense to work with competitors, as it is a struggle to survive.

If there really is potential, than working together can help access and grow that market.

Surprises

When companies get together, they begin by thinking that they are direct competitors. But after a while it is common to find that each has a special niches or areas they concentrate on. So working together means that you can target markets and rather than turning potential customers away, can point them to the best location.

Problems

Many attempts to work together on a national or local basis have failed.  One key reason is that egos clashed and nothing ever got done. The other is that nobody bothered to decide on achievable goals, just some grandiose idea. The other main failure is that they set up a website that provided information but no way for a customer to get detailed information on a hospital or clinic, or do what everyone expects to be able to do now on a hotel site, book online.

Conclusion

Working together is a good idea if you can increase the market or together increase the share of market by numbers or revenue. If it is just a talking shop, you may be better of meeting at the local café without an agenda.  But if you are prepared to spend a bit of time and money, it can offer insights that help your business succeed.

Checklist

1. Find out who your local competitors are.
2. Find about them and how they compare to you
3. Approach them informally about co-operation
4. Expect several to decline to take part
5. If you have enough who will start a discussion, go ahead.
6. Decide one or two achievable goals
7. Cost these goals
8. Agree who will pay and their share of costs.
9. Go ahead with a manageable project
10. Analyse the results