Healthcare, tourism to join hands

The Indian tourism and healthcare industry came together to package the two as "healthcare tourism", a value proposition to a foreign traveller, at the second day of the 12th CII-Quality Summit, in Bangalore on Friday.

Sensing better businesses opportunity with the coming together of these two sectors, various stakeholders were of the view that formation of a consortium, which would be a Nasscom equivalent of the IT industry, is the way forward.

While it is too early to make rapid strides in the sector, there was a general consensus among all stakeholders that both sectors hold a great potential when it is presented as one to a traveller. Healthcare is not just being positioned as cure for an ailment, but for a sense of well-being and comfort.

Tourism secretary, government of Karnataka, C S Kedar suggested the formation of a "Society for Promotion of Health and Wellness Tourism in Karnataka". Kedar said that this could act as a consortium which can help bring together all stakeholders of the tourism and healthcare industry.

"This way we can insulate ourselves from the vagaries of the government. This society can help its members in activities like branding and marketing. The members, who would also be stakeholders of the sectors, can share the statistics and data with each other. This data can be managed by the society and perhaps a corpus can also be created," Kedar explained.

Nearly three lakh foreign tourists came to Karnataka last year and this represents only 10 per cent of the foreign arrivals to India.

"It is estimated that 10-12 per cent of those coming to India come only for healthcare. It is also estimated that tourist arrivals in India is likely to grow by 25-30 per cent," said Mahendra Jain, tourism commissioner, government of Karnataka.

India has a distinct advantage in pitching itself as a "wellness destination" because the cost of treatment here is one-sixth to one-tenth of that in the West. The time is ripe for convincing the rest of the world to outsource their healthcare needs from India, according to Dr Sanjay Sharma, head, Sita Care.

"Nearly 15.2 per cent of the population in the US are uninsured due to a change of jobs and for other reasons. This amounts to nearly 43.6 million people. As a result, their medical expenses cannot be covered when they are changing jobs. This segment of the population can avail good healthcare from India," Sharma said.

"In West Asia alone, nearly 5 lakh people travelled abroad in 2003 for treatment. post-9/11, it has become difficult for these people to obtain visas," Sharma added.

Identifying the main loopholes that may come in the way of healthcare tourism, Sharma said, "The role of the tour operators have not been tapped extensively. Since these people have a great knowledge of the outside world, they can provide value-addition in promotion and publicity."