Big bets on medical tourism

New Delhi, March 24: Over one million medical tourists are set to visit India by 2010, and hotels and hospitals are gearing up to make the most of it.

Fortune Park Hotels, a wholly owned subsidiary of Calcutta-based ITC Ltd, has entered the medical tourism business with the inauguration of the Fortune Park LakeCity hotel in Thane near Mumbai.

Fortune Park LakeCity, which is managed by the ITC subsidiary, is owned by Jupiter Lifeline Hospitals. The 33rd property of Fortune Park has 58 rooms with an additional 32 rooms set to open by the end of this year.

The two partners are also planning a similar property in Vizag in the next two years. “We plan to launch a similar kind of medical tourism project with Fortune Park, which will have a 250-bed hospital with a 50-60 room hotel,” said Ajay Thakker, chairman and CEO of Jupiter LifeLine Hospitals.

The project cost is expected to be around Rs 150 crore.

Cost efficiency is one of the factors that makes India an attractive proposition for medical treatment. Medical costs in India are about a fifth of that in the US.

However, according to some travel agents, there is not much incentive left to sell the product to clients.

“Travel agents have gone all the way to woo tourists and sell medical tourism as a product. But we have observed that once a patient forms a rapport with hospitals and hotels here during his first visit, his subsequent visits are not booked through us. So, in the long term who would like to lose business?” said Pradip Lulla, president of the Travel Agents Federation of India.

“While there has been an influx of such tourists from across the world, a majority of patients come from West Asia and Southeast Asia, followed by the US, UK, Switzerland and Tanzania,” he said.

According to a research, a surge in medical tourist arrivals will be mainly driven by increasing availability of quality healthcare services and low cost.

In another study by the Confederation of Indian Industry and consulting firm McKinsey, medical tourism in India is expected to grow to $2 billion (Rs 9,000 crore) by 2012 from $1 billion.

Wockhardt Hospitals plans to open four super-speciality hospitals in the next three years after clearing its debt by selling 10 hospitals to Fortis Healthcare.