Rebranding Dubai - The healthy way

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What steps does Dubai need to take to make sure it is the destination of choice for medical tourists? Ayesha Khanna and Jaime Fitzgerald provide five strategies for Dubai to make itself the leader in this industry.

The global recession has negatively impacted transshipping, tourism and real estate in Dubai, three of its primary economic sectors. To counter skepticism about its future, Dubai has been touting the Dubai Health Care City (DHCC) whose Phase I is going to be completed in 2010 as the world’s new center of medical tourism and an emerging pillar of the Emirates’ economy. Indeed, given that medical tourism is a multi-billion dollar booming industry with 2-3 million patients seeking treatment in foreign countries annually, Dubai seems to be in the right place at the right time. But medical tourism is now an increasingly competitive marketplace, with Singapore, Thailand and India leading the way among a group of over 35 countries that cater to international patients. Several of these competitors are in the Middle East region itself with both Jordan and Lebanon being top contenders, and Abu Dhabi close behind Dubai in developing its healthcare offerings.

So what can Dubai do to secure top ranking in the industry and attract a significant percentage of the millions of medical tourists swarming the globe today? The primary attraction for medical tourists is financial savings (if they are coming from the West) and quality of care (especially if they herald from developing countries). For example, a heart bypass that costs $130,000 in the US costs only $10,000 in India. Similar cost structures exist in Thailand and Singapore as well, two other well-known providers in the region, and thus Dubai does not offer a cost advantage versus these areas. Dubai has partnered with Harvard Medical International (HMI) to provide a renowned and trusted name as its strategic collaborator. However, HMI has, in fact, developed over 50 programs in more than 30 countries across five continents and most medical tourism hubs have alliances with similarly well-respected institutions, thus diluting the uniqueness of this partnership in Dubai. The Government of Dubai needs to employ a coherent strategy leveraging customer information and analytics in order to develop a competitive edge in this industry. Other governments such as those of Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia are already collaborating with their local health industries to improve the profile and attractiveness of their medical tourism sector. In other words, the hundreds of million dollar investments in healthcare facilities and alliances at DHCC while commendable and necessary are not enough to give Dubai an edge over its competitors, all of which are following similar paths. Only with a highly sophisticated and dynamic strategy that is both responsive to market trends and technologically innovative can Dubai become one of the top destinations for international patients, and in the process, diversify its economy and experience high growth. Five strategies ranging from understanding and targeting customers better to using state of the art information technology to strengthen and increase the longevity of customer relations will help Dubai sustain competitive advantage on an on-going basis.

Targeted Customer Marketing and Services - Identifying relevant customer segments is the key to building having a strong client base. Thousands of UAE citizens traditionally went to the US for medical treatment. However, visa barriers since September 11^th meant fewer patients from the Middle East and Gulf states could pursue treatment in the US. Now they go to other medical hubs, including 90,000 UAE citizens per year just to Thailand alone. Targeting and capturing a greater share of this market should be the first priority for DHCC. A strong regional and domestic customer base also protects Dubai from recessions in other regions of the world.

Ironically, the US now suffers from out-bound medical tourism because of the bloated, inefficient and expensive healthcare system in the country that makes treatment unfeasible even for the insured. Then there are the 50 million uninsured Americans, and even those who have free healthcare like US army veterans suffer long waiting times for basic procedures. According to Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions in Washington, D.C., 600,000 Americans will travel abroad for medical treatment, looking for cheaper better medical care. This reality is not lost on Jordon, ranked #1 in medical tourism in the Middle East by the World Bank, which regularly appeals directly to the cash strapped and frustrated US population. Recently, the head of Jordan’s Private Hospitals Association, Dr. Fawzi al-Hammouri, advertised treatment packages as “less than 25 percent of what you have to pay in the U.S."

Another massive market for Dubai are patients from Canada and Britain, all of whom suffer from long waiting periods that are characteristic of publicly funded healthcare. Carefully profiling and analyzing each kind of customer, their needs, and their motivations for seeking healthcare abroad will allow Dubai to prioritize and target high value customers. This kind of customer segmentation and profitability analysis is common in multinational organizations such as Pepsi which continually calibrate their marketing and products to customer preferences and needs.

Superior Customer Experience – According to Josef Woodam, author of Patients Without Borders, patients highly value the customer experience in terms of the attention they receive, the quality of treatment, and the attractiveness of local tourism. Dubai is already a popular tourist destination and is planning to leverage its experience and services in tourism to enhance the value of the medical stay of international patients. Other countries are similarly working in the same vein. South Africa, for instance, offers luxurious resorts and safaris as part of its medical care packages (one leading provider is called appropriately Surgeons & Safari, and is run by Lorraine Melville, a Founding Member of the Medical Tourism Association of South Africa.)

But customer experience is far more than just adding tourist attractions to patient treatment. When Joseph Pine and James Gilmore wrote about customer experience in their pioneering article “Welcome to the Experience Economy” in Harvard Business Review in 1998, they wrote about how “an experience occurs when a company uses services as the stage--and goods as props--for engaging individuals in a way that creates a memorable event.” Customers respond to an experience which is not only functionally reliable but also emotionally rewarding. Companies that have thought deeply about customer experience management such as Starwood Hotels & Resorts have found high returns on the effort. Thus, Dubai must pay attention to the end to end experience of a patient’s interaction with the country’s medical process if it is to successfully differentiate itself from other market players that are less adept at seamlessly managing customer experience.

Customer experience management requires understanding what customers value, and then using that information to improve, automate and integrate business processes. Creating a positive customer experience is a continuous evolution based on careful management and monitoring of feedback provided by customers, which is then incorporated into key interactions with the customer.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Rome was'nt built in a day
Posted by BRANDO, London, GB on Wednesday 7 October 2009 at 18:00 UAE time


Yet another "Rebranding Dubai" article - snzzzz

Whats wrong with saying Market Dubai or Marketing Dubai ?

Short answer > Advertise well, offer a good choice of options, keep the quality of staff/service high and the prices as competitive as possible compared to other established markets !

Maintain that standard over a period of time, Bingo - eventually you'll have success !

Dubaihealth
Posted by sriram Prasad on Wednesday 7 October 2009 at 14:27 UAE time


Impossible task. The hospitals are ill equipped and have no experience and one cannot buy experience

health tourism
Posted by ahmed on Tuesday 6 October 2009 at 17:05 UAE time


tall order....

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