With the advantage of a rich and diverse system of medical facilities and high-quality medical services with reasonable costs and prices and a team of highly skilled doctors and nurses, medical tourism is a product with great potential and competitive advantage of Ho Chi Minh City.
First steps
Ho Chi Minh City's tourism industry launched a Medical Tourism Guide with much necessary information for tourists. In this guidebook, visitors can learn about hospitals participating in the medical tourism product development programme, along with travel agencies, hotels, and affiliated services.
The launch of the Medical Tourism Guide is one of the encouraging results from the five years of implementing Joint Plan No. 1313/KHLT-SDL-SYT (dated June 19, 2017) between the Department of Tourism and Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health on coordination in developing medical tourism products.
The two sides have developed and implemented criteria for hospitals and medical facilities to register to participate in the medical tourism programme, launching a specialised website creating video clips on medical tourism. They also organised a survey programme to research and learn from experience in developing medical tourism models in Thailand and Cambodia.
2023 is a milestone marking the prosperity of Ho Chi Minh City's medical tourism products with many activities implemented specifically and effectively, such as: announcing 30 programme combos tour combining medical tourism and health care suitable for domestic and international markets; launching video clips to introduce and promote medical tourism products in the city; and updating and adjusting the Medical Tourism Guide in six languages with concise, clear and effective content.
Some districts in the city are also interested in medical tourism products when gradually combining with travel companies to build tour programs related to this product. In 2023, District 10 launched "Health Street" and announced medical tourism products in the area.
According to Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, Chairman of the People's Committee of District 10, the launch of "Health Street" and the announcement of District 10 medical tourism products are a new model creating conditions for businesses to promote and introduce their products and connect with traditional tourism products, thus enriching the destinations of the city as well as District 10.
The formation of "Health Street" in District 10 and medical tourism products initially received the response of 150 establishments. District 10 People's Committee also introduced three medical tourism products, including: "District 10 - Sunny Day", “District 10-Shine your smile”, and “I am a doctor”. Tran Quang Duy, Director of Penguin Travel Services Joint Stock Company, said that with the tourism product "District 10-Shine a smile", tourists can experience the oral health care and modern dental services associated with visiting the Traditional Medicine Museum while experiencing macrobiotic dishes at Quynh House restaurant.
Meanwhile, "I am a doctor" is a typical tourism product for middle and high school students. The product exploits and promotes the strengths of medical services associated with traditional medicine activities at Tan Hung Long Pagoda.
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More and more hospitals participating in medical tourism product development programmes. |
Striving to achieve the perfect product
According to Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism Bui Thi Ngoc Hieu, besides the achievements achieved in recent times, the city's medical tourism products still possess some shortcomings that need to be improved, such as: a lack of human resources fluent in foreign languages in the medical field; a lack of professionalism in the promotion of medical tourism products; and most hospitals in the city not having international certificates for foreign patients to use global insurance.
One problem that many travel businesses worry about is overcrowding at public hospitals, which is a barrier to developing medical tourism in the area.
In fact, in some specialised medical fields, only public hospitals have modern machinery and a team of highly qualified doctors for consultations, but the current overload affects the time, quality of service for tourists using this product.
According to Doctor Nguyen Van Vinh Chau, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, to develop medical tourism in the city, it is necessary to identify and promote the strengths of the medical industry to meet the demand of medical tourism.
The city's health sector has made outstanding achievements in infertility treatment, high-tech cancer screening, general examination, traditional medicine, dentistry, rehabilitation, cosmetic surgery, health care, and specialised medicine. These are strengths that can be built into medical tourism products to serve domestic and international tourists.
The tourism industry needs to connect with medical tourism service establishments, hotels, and resorts, creating an ecosystem to ensure the provision of quality healthcare tourism services.
At the same time, a city's medical tourism hotline must be established to receive calls, coordinate, and meet the needs of tourists in terms of health examination, medical examination, treatment, study tours, and other fields which have deployed medical tourism.
For long-term orientation, the city should build a project to develop medical tourism until 2030, with a vision to 2045; continue to improve, standardise, and promote existing tourism models; encourage units to build tourism models according to their strengths; and promote private healthcare. As proposed by Doctor Nguyen Van Vinh Chau, it is necessary to promote activities to support professional medical tourism.
