MALAYSIA NOT ON RADAR OF WESTERN HEALTHCARE SECTOR

BERLIN, Dec 22 (Bernama) -- An aggressive marketing strategy in foreign
markets, including the high-cost Western countries where healthcare costs are
exploding and becoming unmanageable, can help Malaysia benefit greatly from
medical tourism, says a German healthcare specialist.

The expert, who has been noticing Europeans headed for hospitals in Mumbai,
Bangalore, Bangkok and elsewhere in Asia, says Malaysia, unlike India and
Thailand, was not on the radar of the Western healthcare sector.

This is why Malaysia has not been able to attract a lot of medical traffic,
despite its well-developed infrastructure for medical treatment and well-trained
doctors.

India, Thailand and, lately, the Philippines are vying for a slice of the
medical tourism pie.

Indeed, many patients from North America and Europe are increasingly seeking
complex surgical treatment in India and Thailand.

A Frost & Sullivan research study estimates that medical tourism is inherent
with a huge business potential that is expected to touch a mind-boggling US$100
billion (RM312 billion) in 2012.

Medical tourism is growing at an annual rate of 20 to 30 per cent.

The Middle East is one of the latent source markets of patients, with some
20 per cent of healthcare seekers worldwide coming from the Gulf and other Arab
countries.

Meanwhile, a report says that Malaysia is one of the countries in the Asia
Pacific region whose significance as a source of outbound tourism worldwide
increased in 2010.

This assessment is contained in the just-released ITB World Travel Trends
Report by Messe Berlin, the agency that organises the world’s biggest tourism
fair, ITB Berlin, and its Asian edition ITB ASIA in Singapore.


Indeed, outbound travel is increasing at double-digit rates and will end
this year well ahead of levels reached during the pre-recession peak year 2008,
thus setting a new record, according to the report.

The outlook for further growth in 2011 is also looking good, the report
maintains.

As the year 2010 draws to a close, a conspicuous attribute of this year’s
tourism traffic was the rise in outbound travel from a number of Asian
countries.

Besides Malaysia, the other booming outbound Asian markets in 2010 have been
China and South Korea which posted 20 per cent growth rates. Taiwan, Japan,
Singapore and India also posted double-digit growth rates, the report said.

Both China and India have the potential to develop into attractive outbound
markets in the years to come. At present, China is the world’s 10th largest
outbound market, just behind Japan.

However, by 2020, the number of outbound Chinese travellers could double
while the number of Indians travelling abroad could grow five fold.