News Article - Operation Vacation

By John Krich
3 September 2004
The Asian Wall Street Journal

Poolside cocktails . . . a good book . . . a suntan . . . and a few hours under a surgeon's knife. John Krich reports on Asia's medical-tourism boom.

Penang -- AFTER THEIR WEDDING and honeymoon in the Caribbean just over a month ago, Kelly Turner and Paul Mitchell hopped on a business-class flight and headed to Malaysia.

The English couple's visit to Asia wasn't an extension of their honeymoon. Instead, the newlyweds arrived in Kuala Lumpur for an aesthetic overhaul -- a breast enlargement and dental work for 27-year-old Ms. Turner, and teeth whitening for 30-year-old Mr. Mitchell -- followed by a jaunt to the sleepy island of Penang for some post-surgical sun.

Back in the United Kingdom, this list of procedures would have cost close to $18,000. But the couple's unusual trip to Malaysia, arranged by an online company specializing in medical travel packages, cost about half that amount.

"We get the surgery, plenty of dentistry and then a proper holiday," says Mr. Mitchell, the head of a legal billing service in Manchester in the north of England. "With the long waits for operations back home, if . . . people's minds could be triggered to think `Malaysia,' there'd be an invasion."

That is exactly what Malaysian government authorities and hospital administrators want to hear. The country is just one in Asia to be capitalizing on the booming medical tourism industry. The number of foreign travelers heading to Malaysia for medical treatments, for instance, has more than doubled in the past three years -- to 102,000 visitors from 44,000.

Now, a new face of medical tourism is emerging. The demand from foreigners for cosmetic or elective surgery bundled in with a pampering holiday has spawned a small but growing industry of entrepreneurial tour operators in Asia, who are channeling tourists to both luxury city hotels and exotic resort areas such as the island of Penang, for sun -- and surgery.

"After industrial outsourcing, medical tourism can be the second-largest revenue producer in Asia," says Suresh Ponnudurai, whose company Tropical Flow is creating the prototype for the first coordinated Malaysian medical tourism Web-site portal.

Thailand has long recognized the value of the medical dollar. Its unabashed attempt to cast itself as a medical hub, supported by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, has paid off to the tune of about $6 billion -- it's estimated that about one million medical tourists visited the country last year, up from about 630,000 in 2002. Bangkok's famed high-tech Bumrungrad Hospital hosts 300,000 foreign patients annually, who flock there for everything from face lifts to heart surgery. The country's idyllic island resort of Phuket has become a hub for sex-change operations.

Savvy operators in Singapore and India also are bundling a nip and tuck with a stint under a palm tree. Singapore -- one of the pioneers in medical tourism -- attracted more than 150,000 foreign patients last year and has a government-stated aim of topping one million medical tourists by 2012. India, meanwhile, drew about 12,000 overseas visitors last year for elective procedures. Travel agency owner Ravi Gurain's Medical Tourism India site, offers a variety of packages, teaming laser eye treatments with trips to the Taj Mahal. (Mr. Gurain concedes that "trust in Indian facilities is still a hindrance.") Not to be outdone, Malaysia is gearing up to push medical tourism, with plans for the Web portal and trade fairs in places as far flung as Dubai and North Africa.

But the development that may give the Malaysian industry a lift more than any other is the eventual phasing out of the Dental and Medical Act. This edict, implemented before Malaysia won independence from Britain, restricts doctors from promoting their services and has kept hospitals from "even being able to inform the public about what we have," says Dr. Chan Kok Ewe, head of Penang's Island Hospital.

In July, Malaysia's health ministry announced that hospitals and tourism packages could promote their medical facilities overseas. Even though the act has yet to be officially amended, administrators such as Dr. Chan now feel freer to promote themselves outside the country, especially because Web sites often skirt old boundaries between publicity and information.

"Of course," says Dr. Chan, "We're not exactly like Air Asia, where we can bill ourselves as the cheapest or the best."

Locally, groups also are banding together. Penang tourism officials, for example, called the town's private hospitals together in August to try to coordinate the sharing of facilities such as dialysis machines and specialized surgeons to cope with the increase in foreign patients. They now account for some 20% of private-hospital patients and are mostly Chinese speakers from the nearby Indonesian city of Medan.

Gorgeous Getaways arranged the trip for U.K. newlyweds Mr. Mitchell and Ms. Turner. It is trying a similar formula, linking surgeons in Kuala Lumpur with beach vacations in Penang. After a year's research and preparation, founder Louise Cogan is now beginning to send patients to Malaysia. "I just hope the country can keep the great balance between its excellent facilities and competitive prices," says Ms. Cogan.

Ms. Cogan steers clients to companies such as DentalPro, in Kuala Lumpur's expat enclave of Bangsar. Designed and headed by local architect Yaacob Arshad, this clinic looks more like a relaxed spa retreat with its coffee bar and tropical foliage. Since opening a year ago, the clinic has attracted patients from 30 countries -- some of whom fly off to dive in Sabah in between drillings.

At DentalPro, Mr. Mitchell chose the Beyond Whiting System, which involved amalgam fillings, as well as scaling and polishing, while his wife -- "a glutton for punishment," says Mr. Mitchell -- got six new porcelain crowns. All this cost around $3,000, or about a third of what it would have been in the U.K.

The success of these smaller businesses won't necessarily be easy to translate to mass medical care, however. Some prospective travelers worry about the lack of protection in the case of botched surgery. And the strong competition in medical tourism across Asia means Malaysia will need to work hard to distinguish itself. For example, when K.L.'s Sunway Medical Centre tried to package health screening with holidays at the nearby Sunway Lagoon Resort -- which boasts a theme park, shopping center and monorail -- it proved a "non-seller," says Sunway director Chong Su-lin. "Malaysia is still without a clear image in the medical tourism field, caught between the flesh pots of Thailand and the efficiency of Singapore."

Satisfied patients such as Mr. Mitchell, however, are big fans. "My own mother wants a face-lift and I'd certainly recommend this place," he says. "The care is fantastic and the country so advanced, people back home just wouldn't believe it."

Ms. Kelly adds, "We've already decided to come back for Christmas. But this time, except for some more dental work, I can really enjoy myself. It will just be a holiday."

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