Samitivej ? Medical Tourism, a Lucrative Business
Samitivej Wins 2 Prestigious HMA Awards 2008 – Path to Being the Largest Medical Tourism
Samitivej, a leading private hospital in Thailand and Southeast Asia, recently sealed its regional leadership and recognition when it was announced the winner of two Hospital Management Asia 2008 (HMA) awards for Marketing, PR or Promotional Project and Human Resource Development categories. It is also the only hospital from Thailand to win the international awards from 233 entries from 55 hospitals in 15 countries. The two awards emphasize Samitivej’s all-round excellence, both medical and personnel improvement, which contributes greatly to the groups’ strong competitive advantages and leadership in the past 29 years on its “Journey of Care”.
This clearly reinforces its medical excellence, the hospital group’s creative “MIS Campaign” wowed Thai audience with a new perception that any surgery is no big deal any longer with the Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) technology and expertise of Samitivej’s highly skilled and well trained medical team. At the same time, the Human Resource Development Category awards also underline the hospital’s commitment and continuous investment in its staffs’ open communications.
Established in 1979, Samitivej has expanded and are now composed of four branches, all sharing the same knowledge and the state-of-art technologies. Its endeavor was met by being awarded with the prestigious recognition as a Mother and Baby Friendly Hospital by WHO and UNICEF; for the first time in Thailand. In 2004, Samitivej received another award, including the Prime Minister Award for the Most Recognized Service and an accreditation from the Hospital Accreditation Board of Thailand.
Aside from being the leading provider of healthcare services in Thailand, Samitivej is also the most recognized medical tourism and private hospital in Southeast Asia. 40% of Samitivej’s patients are foreigners – renowned itself as the most favored destination of world-class medical services, where the patients can spend at a fraction of cost in the States of Europe for the competent foreign-trained specialists’ services using the same western state-of-the-art technologies. Samitivej’s patients are from the surrounded countries including patients from the Middle East countries as well as the States and Europe.
From a marketing point of view, medical tourism in Asia is a lucrative business. According to a recent report; Asian Medical Tourism Analysis (2008-2012), revenues was worth US.4 billion from medical tourism alone in 2007, which is nearly 12.7% of the global market. The ratio also indicates viable growth at an annual average of 17.6% growth rate between the years 2007-2012.
More than 2.9 million patients enter the following countries for healthcare services: Thailand, Singapore, India, Malaysia and the Philippines. But there is a reason behind why Thailand is the most favored destination. Thailand has emerged as the largest medical tourism market in Asia for its competent services, low cost with a vacation at a beautiful beach resort as an inviting option. For each year, Thailand welcomes over a million visitors who ask for medical services and is accounted to generate US.1 billion revenue for the year.
Samitivej has proven itself to overcome traditional fears of having surgery in South East Asia. Here, the hospital is fully-equipped with the same state-of-the-art technologies and medical equipments, where the specialists are competent and trained in North America, Europe, Japan or Australia.
Samitivej is a JCI Hospital with multi-specialty medical services and Southeast Asia medical tourism , providing services to both locals and international patients.
