A Case Study For Medical Tourism Using The Case Of Seoul Guide

The purpose of this study was to identify the key success factors of medical tourism using the case of Seoul Guide Medical. Medical tourism refers to the phenomenon of travelling across national borders intentionally to access a variety of medical treatments, especially modern medical treatment. Our company started promoting medical tourism when they understood. Since our country as a whole new on the map of medical tourism destinations, our company wants to strategically position itself in the medical tourism market by recognizing our strengths and overcoming our weakness.

Our company tries to maintain sustainability and labour quality. The aim of this study is to show how our strategies attracted our customers to our destination. A qualitative primary research survey was carried out by using the SWOT analysis approach in this study as the strategic analysis of Medical Tourism services for our company. It has been found that our company will generate revenue not only for the tourism industry but also for the medicine industry as well and also for South Korea as a whole.

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Medical tourism is considered important for South Korea, as it may bring prestige to the country and contribute to its marketing and publicity, so our company efforts to improve it and its results are discussed in details in this study.

1.1 Executive Summary:

An overview of our vision, mission and goals and objectives and the strategies we are going to use to achieve it.

Vision:

“The leaders in providing quality medical service and assure universal health care”.

Mission:

Global competitiveness should be ensured by implementing quality standards in both public and private sector.

Goal:

1. Noticeable contribution should be made by our company to the South Korea economy and improvement in the quality of life.

2. Gaining economic benefits by increasing the productivity of the workforce and enabling it to expand and upgrade.

3. Attract customers by providing health care service that is on the same level as with globally-recognized standards but with cheaper cost, and our company will take care of not only the international patient but also the domestic patient.

Objectives:

1. To increase our competitiveness in the national and international market by providing top-quality service.

2. Policy of safety measures should be our top priority

3. Collaborating with government agencies and private sectors to raise as much as much as fund possible for this noble cause.

4. Our behaviour and treatment of our customers should be top-notch.

Marketing Strategy

• High-tech medical equipment will be bought and used by us.

• Target market will be established.

• Develop facilities that is unique and our competitors cannot provide to their customers.

System Reformation

• Even though we will use natural resource, maintaining an activist approach means protecting the environment will be one of our main strategy.

• We will provide cure to the customers not only for their temporary betterment but also for their long-term health.

• Restrictions should be eased but we will have a systematic program human resource management team.

• Promote and brand in such a way that sponsors and investors come to fund us from the country and from abroad.

Infrastructure Construction

• Generic function should be improved and good relationship with the stakeholders will be maintained. (Like by stating goals according to their interest).

• Administrative reconstruction and change of plans should be made to deal with the white-water rapid metaphor that the world market is facing.

• Generating profit and using our funds to improve our service quality is our main goal.

1.2 Introduction:

The medical tourism industry has expanded extensively since the late1990s. Patients are now looking for affordable, as well as high quality medical care travel to medical centres in other countries. The international medical tourism market size is expected to reach USD 131.35 billion by 2025, with an average annual rate of 20%. Although there are a variety of destinations around the world, Asia is considered as a major medical tourism destination. Asian countries, including Thailand, India, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, have enthusiastically promoted such services, and the competition to attract more international medical tourists has become more intense. The rise of the medical tourism industry as well as our company in Asia can be partly attributed to the Asian financial crisis. The Asian financial crisis discouraged much of middle-class Asia to pay for private healthcare, hence private health-care service providers like us have expanded by targeting international patients in order to generate revenue. Moreover, our company benefits such as increasing gross domestic product (GDP), improving medical services and generating foreign exchange. Although the lucrative medical tourism industry has captured the attention of Asian countries, there is a paucity of literature which focuses on medical tourism and even fewer studies have explored the industry from supply perspectives. One of our main goal is to create customer value, which is essential in sustaining a competitive advantage in the growing medical tourism industry, as it leads to affirmative customer evaluations. Therefore, this study aims to identify and analyse the critical success factors of medical tourism by analysing our companies flaws and by rectifying it.

1.3 Literature Review:

The term medical tourism has been defined in various ways (Smith, 2008). Possibly this can be attributed to the fact that it has been used by two different industries: medicine and tourism. Goodrich and Goodrich (1987) defined medical tourism as tourism facilities or destinations attracting tourists by planned promotion with health-related services or facilities. This definition seems to be incomplete because it focuses only on tourism rather than on health and tourism together. Later, the term was defined as a category of special interest tourism (SIT): traveling with a health-related motivation (Hall, 1992). Laws (1996) defined medical tourism as travel from home to another destination to improve one’s health condition as one type of leisure. Finally, Carrera and Bridges (2006) defined medical tourism as travel that is systematically planned to maintain one’s physical and mental health condition. To sum up, medical tourism’s importance is growing faster than ever and it has now became an essential term in the modern world.

1.4 Findings:

As a manager, I analysed the situation and also internal and external that are affecting our performance by doing a SWOT analysis.

Strengths

• Providing medical service at a very low cost.

• A lot of qualified doctors, who treated across 55 countries around the globe.

• We have achieved reputation through providing developed health care with the help our advance technology.

• We have earned international recognition through our skilled nursing staff.

Weakness

• Lack of government support doesn’t allow us to promote.

• Negative perception of the customers came from the low bonding between competitors in our industry.

• Required Technology prices are so high as there are no government regulations.

Opportunities

• Aging population and the high cost medical service of the UK, Canada creates an opportunity for us.

• A life full of stress led people to travel to abroad for medical service.

• People from countries with under developed health care facilities may come to us.

• South Korean Insurance companies providing more benefits then other superior nations may attract our customers.

Threats

• Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore companies are giving us tough competition.

• Lack of data in the websites for the international customers.

• Low investment from the government in our sector is a threat for ous.

1.5 Discussion:

Treatment provided to patients over the years:

Revenues generated over the years:

Due to the corona virus pandemic our revenue earnings were low this year, even if it is now just less than half a year. Still we looked up to our problems and tried to solve them.

The benefits that we will give to our customers

· Providing treatment packages that are customized for maximum benefit of the customers.

· Providing support & guidance whole day over telephone and face to face.

· Assistance provided not only for health-care but also for visa reasons.

· Managing top-notch doctor appointments for customers as soon as possible.

· Providing patient admission without any delay.

· Providing top quality safety measures according to patient budget.

· Giving sim cards of South Korea and also providing accurate money exchange to patients.

· Providing Interpreters who are well-known and accurate.

· Follow-ups Provided after treatment.

If we talk about results then I can proudly say that our strategies worked perfectly until now. We pray and hope this continues.

1.6 Conclusion:

This study explored the key success factors of medical tourism with a case study about our company Seoul Guide Medical. Overall, Korean medical tourism along with our company has gained a competitive advantage among other destinations, with the effect of Hallyu and Korean brand power which both generates credibility to Korean medical skills. Hallyu has increased familiarity with Korea and had a positive impact by increasing the number of medical tourists, particularly for plastic surgery. Advanced Korean brand power, such as Samsung, has positively shaped the image of Korea. In addition, our company gains a competitive advantage not only through satisfying medical tourists seeking medical treatment at a reasonable price, but also generated customer values by providing tourism activities for companions and follow-up care. In order to reduce medical tourists’ concerns regarding follow-up care, we are having continuous contact with medical tourists online and also face to face. While some research on medical tourism investigated the industry from the demand side, such as consumer behaviour, this study is distinctive because it investigates our company from the supply side. Moreover, although there are many studies exploring the challenges in medical tourism, such as concerns about follow-up care and cultural differences, there was little research efforts to reduce the challenges. The results in this study address a gap in the literature in finding the identified challenges. Practically, this study generated results which are valuable for our company to acknowledge. In South Korea, where the industry is in the initial stage we had to face a lot of challenges. While this study addressed the research gap and provided valuable findings for ous, there are still several limitations and investigated our performance from other service providers’ perspectives. Moreover, based on the results in this study, comparative analysis between us and our competitors can be used for future studies.

1.7 Recommendations:

As I am the manager, here is some recommendations to improve our performance-

• We can promote and include spa treatment in our health care system and we should avoid the things that are creating a negative perception in people’s mind.

• As there is limited facts about our sector, web seminars can be done to remove the negative perception of people that low cost equals to low quality.

• Our funding should be used to improve sustainability and labour quality. Apart from that it can be used for CSR activities because the world needs help because of the new Corona virus pandemic.

• The policy of prevention better than cure should be built, because if someone comes to us by having a last stage of disease then it’s harder for us to cure.

1.8 Implementation:

The CEO wants our team to be as united as possible. To overcome the barriers in front of us. That’s why he personally communicated with us. We use the management by objectives. So, our performance is measured every 3 months. If we are not up to the mark, we are inspired to do more, as we are a people-oriented organization. I try to help my employees, as a divisional manager I have flexibility in my organization, I don’t always have to report to my senior. Sometimes I can make decisions rapidly to survive in this heavily competitive industry. Our CEO evaluates our resources and maintains a good relationship with the stakeholders. Employees and manager are strictly ordered by the top management to be well behaved with the customers. We follow that in our HR recruitment process along with skills, so that we are not only productive but also customer responsive. I am satisfied with the way we are going, at the same time wanting to continuously improve cause we all know without innovations or new ideas it’s impossible to survive in today’s market that is extremely fast-paced and changes from one end to another in just moments.

Reference List

1) Medical tourism in Korea – recent phenomena, emerging markets, potential threats, and challenge factors: a review. (2020). Retrieved 9 April 2020, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10941665.2019.1610005?src=recsys&journalCode=rapt20

2) (2020). Retrieved 9 April 2020, from https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1503&context=hospitalityreview

3) Hospital, S., (SNUH), S., Chien, s., garvida, k., & Boymurodov, M. (2020). ➤ Discover Medical Tourism to South Korea in 2019. Retrieved 9 April 2020, from https://en.bookimed.com/article/medical-tourism-to-south-korea/

4) The Seoul Times. (2020). Retrieved 9 April 2020, from https://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/news/medical_tourism/medical_tourism.php

5) Medical Tourism in South Korea | South Korea Medical Tourism. (2020). Retrieved 9 April 2020, from https://www.medicaltourismco.com/medical-tourism-in-south-korea/