Earlier this year, Deloitte released Tourism Destination Switzerland – Quo Vadis?, a study featuring insights and inputs from owners and managers of 32 Swiss hotel companies in the luxury and middleclass segments. Only 25 per cent of the respondents exceeded revenue and guest number expectations last year, while 80 per cent expect negative developments in the hospitality sector over the next two to three years. However, everyone sees strong growth potential in Swiss health tourism.
“Around 15 per cent of the hotel companies surveyed plan to expand their activities in the area of health tourism,” says Karine Szegedi, Partner — Consumer Business at Deloitte Switzerland. “They are facing a number of challenges, however, such as the lack of qualified staff and current work and hygiene regulations.”
According to the auditing and consulting firm, measures to improve competitive positioning include attractive amenities, excellent service, targeted marketing, customer retention and social media presence.
Variety and quality
Switzerland continues to baffle as it keeps increasing its inbound health tourist numbers despite some of the highest prices in the world. A key attraction is the staggering variety of procedures on offer, from medical spas and IVF treatments to neuro, cosmetic, obesity and orthopaedic surgeries. Swiss hospitals also offer superior procedures in dentistry, and laser surgery and hair removal. All these come with a premium price tag, but tourists, especially from the Middle East, seem far more concerned about the quality associated with Swiss health care.
In particular, the GCC takes prime position, with Switzerland Tourism GCC disclosing that Saudi Arabia maintains an unbeaten first position, followed by the UAE. Overall, 253,919 GCC medical tourists with 735,318 overnight stays visited Switzerland between January and November last year, an increase of 23.4 per cent over 2013.
With GCC tourists spending an average of CHF500 (about Dh1,891) per day — more than anyone else in daily tourist expenditure — it’s not surprising that Swiss Health says on its website it is focusing activities on Gulf states, besides Russia and the CIS countries.
For UAE residents, visiting Switzerland to seek treatment, undergo a medical procedure or simply feel better, is as simple as finding the right institution online. An example is Incotrade, a member of Switzerland Tourism Worldwide and an official partner of Swiss Travel System, which pairs patients with the institutions. “Switzerland’s extraordinary medical clinics, institutes and hospitals, with state-of-art treatments and personalised services, are among the best in the world, where the utmost professionalism and warm personal attention go hand in hand,” it says on its website. “Modern technology, Swiss precision and the beautiful surroundings help speed up the recovery process.”
Another online resource is Caremondo — an international health-care marketplace where patients can search, compare and contact clinics — which lists ten institutions in Switzerland, among them branches of the Hirslanden private clinic group, the largest medical network in the country.
The final choice
In August, the death of a healthy British former nurse at a suicide clinic in Basel reignited the controversy surrounding the rising number of foreigners visiting Switzerland to end their lives — a part of the health tourism sector colloquially known as suicide tourism. A study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics said the number of suicide tourists doubled between 2008 and 2012, when 611 people from 31 countries ended their lives in the country.
Recently, a Canadian panel investigating doctor-assisted deaths said a fact-finding tour to Switzerland provided valuable insights to the complexities surrounding the practice, which will soon be legal in Canada. “I think we learned there is a very close relationship between the role of physician and the role of organisations such as Dignitas and EXIT, and it really is this connection that seems to facilitate the ability in Switzerland to deliver physician-assisted dying,” panel head Dr Harvey Max Chochinov told The Canadian Press.
While several European countries allow euthanasia, assisted suicide or both, Switzerland has the most lenient right-to-die laws.
