Choosing a trip begins with a universe of motivations that awake the traveler’s interests. A trip becomes a reality when there is a “match” between three elements: motivation, availability and economic resources.

The motivation of the trip can come from several factors: the experience in the destination, foreign culture, loved ones … But in this post we will focus on the motivation generated by health tourism, a way of traveling and healing that has an increasing number of followers.

By analyzing the growth of establishments focused on this segment, at the hotel factory we have taken an approach on everything surrounding this beyond-traditional way of travelling.

What means health tourism?

“Health tourism is a global phenomenon that consists in the process of traveling to another city or country to receive some type of treatment or medical service.” That phrase summarizes the original and main idea of ​​the concept, however, in this post we will go deeper in the analysis and we will differentiate between three levels of the concept depending on the degree of medical intervention offered:

• Wellness: Usually involves hotels focused on providing the client services of well-being, relaxation and natural treatments where the guest is healed in body, but, above all, in mind.

• Med-Well: In addition to the services offered in purely wellness hotels, these kind of hotels include services more focused on the scientific and technological area and are mainly focused on weight loss.

  

• Medical: The motivation of the trip of tourists / patients belonging to this segment is purely medical. These are tourist establishments where medical interventions of a greater degree are carried out, such as surgery.

The hotel factory team has years of experience in several projects developed in this area, and in this post we will define the differential elements that support this idea and the key to success of this business model.

Five key aspects to be considered in health tourism

1. In the case of Med-Well and Medical, it is mainly a matter of destination hotels, that is, the client arrives at the hotel for the intra-hotel offer and not for the surroundings of the hotel. However, from the hotel factory we think that the key to success lies in integrating the extra-hotel experiences in the product so that the client and the companions can extend the stay in the hotel and therefore generate a higher revenue and a higher degree of customer satisfaction.

2. It is a segment that is willing to make a high economic outlay in interventions, treatments and products, and this inertia in consumption should be exploited by offering services, activities and products that complement its medical cycle.

3. The segment tends to be clients with a high purchasing power, and that is why a hotel must be created according to the level of medical service offered, which will also allow to define a high level of rates that will not harm the occupation. Analyzing the offer in the main health tourism destinations in Europe, it has been concluded that these are hotels focused on the luxury segment, with privacy and high service as the main attributes.

4. Higher rates contribute to having a well-known specialist of the sector associated with the hotel, and in a way that reinforces the positioning of the product and helps with the commercialization.

5. Another key aspect is the alignment of the different attributes that make up the concept. In other words, reinforcing the concept of health tourism through the different elements that the product has: healthy gastronomy, staff dealing face-to-face with customers with empathic skills and areas that guarantee the true comfort needed by clients before, during and after the medical intervention.

Nowadays, the tourism industry is constantly changing, and the level of segmentation is creating increasingly differentiated and innovative products. At the hotel factory we are in a constant lookout for the main innovations in the hospitality sector to guarantee the customer a product that is clearly differentiated from the rest, and according to the new trends that originate in the market. If you are interested in finding out more about the importance of conceptualization in the hospitality sector and about our repositioning projects, do not hesitate to contact us and ask for advice.