Thousands of Chinese tourists are expected to visit Taiwan during the upcoming Chinese New Year holidays, the most important period in the Chinese community.
Although this growth is driven in part by the soaring number of direct flights between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, the government could do more for Taiwan’s medical tourism industry by allowing Chinese patients to visit without being confined to tour groups.
With regards to the available medical facilities, hotels and transportation, the government should consider the business potential of the movement of hundreds of millions of Chinese — the biggest annual mass human migration in the world — in its bid to attract visitors seeking health and wellness on the island.
The momentous movement is traditionally westward as migrant workers in the mainland’s coastal cities return to their families in the inland provinces. However, put off by long queues for train tickets, some are now considering an alternative use for the holiday other than the usual homecoming. With similar culture and celebrations of lunar New Year, Taiwan could be an ideal destination for spring festival tourism.
And if mainlanders need one more reason to leave their homes during the important festival, Taiwan’s top quality health care and examination industry is in service. After all, healthiness has long been one of the most popular Chinese New Year wishes.
If one defines medical tourism as the provision of “cost effective” private medical care for foreign patients needing surgical and other forms of specialized treatment, Taiwanese hospitals are at the forefront of the industry.
In a nutshell, the equipment used by Taiwanese hospitals is at the forefront of the high-tech medical care industry. Both the private sector and the government devote billions of dollars each year to developing one of the world’s most comprehensive health care systems.
Several medical centers have even been accredited by the U.S.-based Joint Commission International (JCI) as internationally-recognized medical facilities outside the United States.
The JCI accreditation provides a visible commitment to the quality of medical care being offered; it ensures a safe environment and demonstrates the hospital’s continuous efforts to reduce risks to patients and staff.
In mainland China, the quality of medical services has yet to reach the level of medical facilities across the island, even though the Chinese perception of “medical services” has been changing gradually.
At the same time, the continuous rise in health care costs is further shifting responsibility for payments to patients, who are seeking less expensive alternatives. The resulting change from a patient-centered system to a consumer-centered one creates new opportunities for Taiwan’s entrepreneurs.
Many Taiwanese people believe that medical care is a service industry, like the catering and hotel industries, which makes local hospitals even more attractive than medical institutions on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
Even though the total revenue from tourists who came exclusively for Taiwan’s medical services was only around NT$636 million in 2009, according to statistics provided by the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (財團法人中華經濟研究院), with the support of the government, Taiwan could become more well-known in the Chinese-speaking world for its world-renowned health care sector. By granting medical visas to Chinese citizens, there would be great potential in getting well-off Chinese tourists to visit the island for medical purposes.
Last year, more than four million people traveled to Taiwan, and nearly 1.2 million of them were from mainland China, thanks to the gradual warming of cross-strait relations since the election of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in March 2008.
As the Japanese government now grants a six-month medical visa for foreigners who visit for medical purposes, the government should also devise policies that give Chinese medical tourists opportunities to visit Taiwan, rather than forcing them to enter the island under false pretenses using business or tourist visas.
Source : The China Post