Follow our latest updates HERE

MALAYSIA: DESTINATION OF THE YEAR 2020

MALAYSIA: DESTINATION OF THE YEAR 2020

Content

Balancing the worlds of healthcare and economics, Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry skilfully nurtures continued industry growth while exemplifying patient safety and experience. Branded Malaysia Healthcare, the industry has grown at a CAGR of 17% from 2015-2019, outpacing the year-on-year global and APAC growth rates of 10-12% and 12-14% respectively.

Global average compounded annual growth rate (“CAGR”) for the past 5 years has been 10%-12%, with a 4% year-on-year growth. Source: World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). On the back of this healthy growth, in terms of revenue, global healthcare travel‘s current receipts are estimated to be at USD16 billion8 and is expected to reach USD20 billion by 2022. Source: Euromonitor.

IMTJ and Euromonitor estimated the global medical tourist revenue in 2018 to be at USD16 billion. This is pure hospital receipts, excluding wellness. The industry players believe that if the revenue from wellness and other supportive services such as hotel, logistics, shopping, leisure and meals are included, the industry’s revenue may reach USD180 billion.

It is important to note that the global healthcare travel industry revenue estimate and forecast could be a few folds more if wellness, pre- and post- medical segments as well as the spillover to other industries are added to these numbers.

With six out of the top 10 healthcare travel hotspots based in APAC, the region takes approximately 25% of the estimated global healthcare travel revenue. APAC’s healthcare travel market share is estimated to be around USD4 billion based on the global estimate by the International Medical Travel Journal (“IMTJ”). This number is projected to grow to USD9.5 billion by 2022 with a CAGR of 12%-14% during that period. Again, it is important to note that the regional healthcare travel industry revenue estimate and forecast could be a few folds more if wellness, pre- and post- medical segments as well as the spillover to other industries are added to these numbers.

Source: MHTC Analysis

Malaysia Healthcare is a national agenda comprising a unique composition of public and private players, championed by our own dedicated agency, Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC). Identified as a key export service, Malaysia Healthcare’s growth is crucial for cultivating economic benefits, leading stakeholders along the value chain to build industry sustainability using the following strategies:

  1. Reinforce Emerging Growth Sector-i.e.:Catalysing economic growth through Government allocation of USD4.7million,
  2. Integrated Effort-i.e.:Promote joint events for further brand mileage earning up to USD17.3million in PR Value,
  3. Enhance Business Ecosystem-i.e:Facilitating over 2,000 journeys and operating three Malaysia Healthcare Concierge and Lounges of USD350,000 in value.

Boldly shouting Malaysia as the World’s Healthcare Marvel and differentiating ourselves from global players, Malaysia Healthcare pioneered several novel initiatives including the:

  1. World’s only Medical Travel Media Awards (MTMA),
  2. World’s first holistic healthcare travel campaign, Malaysia Year of Healthcare Travel (MyHT) and the,
  3. Region’s first Cancer Centre of Excellence Guideline for healthcare travel.

Aims

These efforts resulted in astounding feedback received of Malaysia Healthcare’s ability to make a difference in patients’ healthcare and grow industry sustainability. Our commitment to patient centricity has sustained our inbound patient volume of over 1.2 million visitors while enjoying 17% revenue increase in 2019 of USD400million** in hospital receipts. This signifies trust earned by Malaysia Healthcare especially for complex and higher-value treatments. Gunning for greater industry sustainability, Malaysia is on the fast-track to reach our ultimate aim which is to be the leading global healthcare destination, with aspirations to earn USD1billion by 2025.

Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry, branded Malaysia Healthcare, ranks as the number one destination by volume.

1Malaysia is the number one healthcare travel destination by volume according to The Global Market Report 2018 produced by LaingBuisson.

Matching our global prominence, between 2015-2019, we have been continuously growing at a CAGR of 17%, outpacing the year-on-year APAC and global growth rates of 12-14%2 and 10-12%3 respectively.

2Source: MHTC Analysis based on various sources including The Edge Markets, IMTJ, Singapore Tourism Board, and Thailand Today. For more information please refer to page 22 of the Malaysia Healthcare Chronicles downloadable here.

3Source: MHTC Analysis

Operating under the purview of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health, Malaysia Healthcare has been marked as a national agenda to sustainably drive economic growth while exemplifying patient centricity.

Malaysia has been named “Destination of the Year” for healthcare travel by International Medical Travel Journal4 and “Country with the Best Healthcare System”5 by International Living multiple times and recently ranked as “the seventh global destination for wellness”6.

4Malaysia has now been recognised as the “Destination of the Year” by International Medical Travel Journal (IMTJ) for three years in a row between 2015 to 2017 and received ‘Highly Commended’ mentions in 2018 and 2019.

5Malaysia’s healthcare system has been internationally recognised by US-based International Living earning the title as the country with the “Best Country in the World for Healthcare” based on their Global Retirement Index from 2015 to 2019. In 2020, Malaysia attained the position as the “Top Asian Country for Retirement and Healthcare”.

6Malaysia ranks 7 out of the Top 10 Wellness and Tourism Markets in APAC by The Global Wellness Institute

Aiming to sustain these successes, Malaysia Healthcare aims to grow our market share and become the global leader by revenue.

As a leading key export service industry, Malaysia Healthcare has created over 15,000 jobs and attracted over USD2.4billion in investments as of 2011. Boldly presenting Malaysia as the World’s Healthcare Marvel, Malaysia Healthcare garnered a 17% increase in hospital receipts of USD400million in 2019, with a total economic impact of USD1.5billion. Moving forward, we aim to maintain our leading position in inbound patient volume and position Malaysia as the trusted leading global healthcare destination. By 2025, we aspire to outperform our socio-economic contributions by creating an additional 9,000 jobs and attracting USD1.7billion in investments. Ultimately, we aspire to be the number one destination by revenue, capturing USD1billion in healthcare travel revenue.

Strategy

Malaysia Healthcare has always leveraged our greatest strategic anchor, our unique public-private partnership model, which has yielded our past successes and will capture our future achievements:

  1. MHTC – Plays a central role as the industry facilitator and promoter, coordinating collaborations between Government and private entities.
  2. Private Healthcare Industry and Government – Malaysian private healthcare stays at the helm of the industry, backed by Government bodies who serve as enablers.
  3. Other public and private players – Public sector bodies, international players and non-healthcare related private players which diversify services offered within the industry.

Stakeholders employ strategies, which lead towards increased industry resilience by developing the industry’s resources, increasing collaboration and diversifying the industry’s offerings:

Reinforce Emerging Growth Sector- Aligned to the Shared Prosperity Vision7, 2019 saw increased commitment (i.e.:USD4.7million Government allocation) and promotion from stakeholders throughout every level to further develop the healthcare travel industry.

7The Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 is a document that outlines 10-year goals to restructure Malaysia’s low-skill labour-intensive economy to a knowledge-based economy. More information here: https://www.pmo.gov.my/2019/10/shared-prosperity-vision-2030-2/

Integrated Effort-Leveraging collective strengths, Malaysia Healthcare’s stakeholders pursue strategic collaborations to gain inroads into new markets and increase industry’s global recognition (e.g.: Concerted destination branding earned USD17.3million in PR Value).

Enhance Business Ecosystem- Distinguished as an export service sector with considerable socio-economic benefits, cross-sector industry players adopt a proactive role to improve the end-to-end patient experience through:

  1. Diversifying service offerings,
  2. Enhancing industry efficiency and productivity (i.e.:Investment of roughly USD350,000 into Malaysia Healthcare Concierge and Lounges across 3 years),
  3. Improving services and facilities for increased patient satisfaction (i.e.:Malaysia International Referral Centres (MIRC) established in China exemplify complete origin-to-destination customer service).

Innovation

Trailblazing with novel ideas to strengthen Malaysia’s global position for our renowned healthcare travel experience, we established:

  1. The world’s only Medical Travel Media Awards (MTMA)8, strengthening Malaysia Healthcare’s visibility among global media from over 10 countries, amassing USD2.6million in PR Value from over 250 submissions.

8The Medical Travel Media Awards (MTMA) is the one and only global media awards which recognises excellence in medical travel journalism. The fist awards took place on 22nd August 2019.  Visit this link for more information:  https://www.mhtc.org.my/mtma2019/

  1. The world’s first holistic healthcare travel campaign, MyHT, staking our position as the World’s Healthcare Marvel. With Malysia Healthcare as a national agenda, MyHT’s global recognition was pursued through awareness-building initiatives and cross-sector collaborations, garnering USD17.3million in PR Value.
  1. The novel Malaysia International Referral Centres (MIRC)9 Chengdu and Hangzhou have garnered immediate success upon establishment by:
  1. increasing awareness and visibility,
  2. building trust through community-based activities and government endorsement,
  3. demonstrating patient centricity through exemplification of end-to-end service best practices. These centres have contributed an 11% increase in overall demand, proving its efficacy in growing Malaysia’s identity as the Fertility Hub of Asia in China.

MIRC Launch in Hangzhou

  1. Malaysia’s first Flagship Medical Tourism Hospital Programme10, shortlisting 13 leading private medical institutions to be groomed as Malaysia’s global hallmarks of healthcare travel excellence.

10The Flagship Medical Tourism Hospital Programme was announced by the then Minister of Finance, The Honourable Lim Guan Eng, on 24th September 2019 during insigHT2019, the region’s leading medical travel market intelligence conference.

  1. Sustaining our global leading position in inbound patient volume, we:

a) Developed Malaysia Healthcare’s first industry blueprint to enhance industry sustainability by leveraging the collective strengths of Malaysia Healthcare’s public and private stakeholders towards achieving our aspiration of USD1billion in revenue by 2025,

b) Pioneered the first healthcare travel Cancer Centre-of-Excellence (COE) Guideline within the region developed by oncology subject-matter-experts in the public and private sectors to clearly define principles for forming a COE facility, ultimately elevating Malaysia’s cancer service quality.

Implementation

Reinforce Emerging Growth Sector

Industry stakeholders synergised to drive Malaysia Healthcare to become a leading export service industry by:

  1. Enabling MyHT as the catalyst for industry growth through USD4.7million Government allocation
  2. Industry stewardship and policy proposals via a dialogue between private hospital leaders, MHTC and Ministries (Health and Finance)
  3. Raising Malaysia’s global profile for medical device manufacturing
  4. Promoting Malaysia Healthcare’s medical expertise and capturing industry opportunities through international healthcare conferences as well as Government-to-Government and Business-to-Business engagements.
  1. Improving productivity of private healthcare through the collaborative Malaysia Productivity Nexus11.

11The Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC), operating under the Minister of International Trade and Industry, introduced the Malaysia Productivity Nexus under the Malaysia Productivity Blueprint. The Productivity Nexus for each subsector is intended for both the public and private sectors to collaborate closely towards enhancing productivity and competitiveness for the betterment of Malaysians.

  1. Improving medical outcomes and service level, while developing the capacity of the Fertility Hub of Asia.
  2. Strengthening Malaysia’s reputation as the leader in cardiology service and enhance our capabilities.

Integrated Effort

The expansion of Malaysia Healthcare’s value-chain to include cross-sector collaborations elevated Malaysia as the World’s Healthcare Marvel:

  1. insigHT2019, themed “Differentiation for Excellence”, changed the healthcare travel landscape through almost 200 collaborative healthcare and non-healthcare institutions.
  1. State healthcare travel councils participated in campaign promotion to yield revenue growth as high as 24% for local healthcare travel industry.
  1. Over 100 joint international engagements in over 16 countries including media familiarisation visits, health talks, trade shows and speaking engagements earning over USD12million in PR Value.

Enhance Business Ecosystem

Improved facilities serve increasing customer volumes at its key touchpoints:

  1. Malaysia Healthcare Concierges, Lounges, Representative Offices and Call Centre with an average of 46% conversions and over 2000 enquiries and journeys facilitated.
  1. Malaysian healthcare institutions upgraded facilities and improved medical expertise to maintain competitive edge.

Feedback

As a marvellous healthcare destination, Malaysia has left a lasting positive impact for our healthcare travellers and stakeholders.

Making a Difference, Changing Lives

Malaysia Healthcare served over 1.2 million patients in 2019, a testament to our life-transforming abilities. The life of a young girl from Myanmar was saved by surgery performed in Malaysia, enabling her to “live a normal life” with a healthy heart rate of “99 – 100, thanks to Malaysia Healthcare’s world-class healthcare services.

Serving top-quality healthcare services, Malaysia Healthcare goes beyond the expected, offering a unique patient experience through warm hospitality. Returning patients feel at home with Malaysia Healthcare, testifying of being “treated like family” and “feel[ing] welcome every time” they entered a Malaysia Healthcare institution.

Quality Care for Your Peace of Mind

Having facilitated over 1,000 journeys and established a new Malaysia Healthcare Concierge and Lounge at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2, our Meet-and-Greet Service (MGS) goes the extra mile in serving every healthcare travellers(Refer_ImageE3&4).

MHTC, Malaysia Healthcare’s Ultimate Advocate: Stakeholders such as partners, state tourism ministries and private healthcare institutions are eager to leveraging MHTC initiatives to develop the healthcare travel sector, “make them [us] visible to the lucrative medical tourism market” and exemplify patient centricity. This cemented Malaysia Healthcare’s partnership with Tai Orient, collaboratively anchoring our brand in China through the MIRCs.

Strong global players recognise how “the Government and private sectors” in Malaysia play a collaborative role to attract “people from all around the world” making us the number one destination by volume.

Outcome

Marvellously building awareness and trust, Malaysia Healthcare sustained our healthcare traveller volume and enjoyed a revenue of USD400million – an increase by 17%, in 201912.

12Malaysia Healthcare divides our healthcare travellers as health tourists and foreign patients. Foreign patients refer to expatriates and non-citizen students residing in Malaysia including inhabitants under the Malaysia, My Second Home Programme. Health tourists refer to patients who travel from abroad into Malaysia seeking healthcare or those who seek healthcare while on travel in Malaysia. While Health Tourist (HTo) numbers took a dip in 2019, HTo revenue still increased. This is because Malaysia Healthcare has shifted the focus to pursuing high value patients, one of our sustainability strategies.

This signifies increased trust in Malaysia Healthcare’s services, with more patients opting for complex, higher-value treatments.

Malaysia Healthcare’s collaborative effort resulted in a total of USD680million13 healthcare travel revenue, which includes receipts from hospitals, wellness, pharmaceuticals, dentals and clinics, resulting in total economic impact of USD1.5billion.

Malaysia Healthcare’s consistent annual double-digit CAGR of 17% over the past five years and our significant contribution to the economy has earmarked MyHT as the sole niche tourism campaign to be officially run in tandem with Visit Malaysia 202014.

13Source: 2019 Malaysia Tourism Performance as published by Tourism Malaysia.14Visit Malaysia Year is a campaign event held from time to time to highlight the best of what Malaysia has to offer as a leading tourist destination in Asia. The year 2020 holds a special place in the heart of Malaysians, with VMY 2020 set to become a festive year-long event. This fifth Visit Malaysia year since 1990 will be held with renewed vigour and passion as we celebrate the successes and challenges we have experienced together as a nation. With the chosen theme ‘Visit Truly Asia Malaysia’, a myriad of exciting and lively events has been lined-up to bring to light all of Malaysia’s bountiful offerings in terms of art, culture, cuisine, history, natural beauty and others.

As a destination, Malaysia gained over USD17.3million in PR Value, a 63% increase from 2018, signifying tremendous growth in our global brand awareness.

Malaysia Healthcare reaped double-digit revenue growth from markets with sustainably established inroads: India by 30%, Indonesia by 20%, China by15%, Myanmar by 14% and Vietnam by 12%. Significant growth from Indonesia despite being the greatest contributing market highlights burgeoning trust in Malaysia Healthcare, especially in high-value treatments.

Having earned greater trust, Malaysia Healthcare experienced an overall 20% increase specifically for health tourists15 with Myanmar, India and Vietnam growing significantly by 95%, 66% and 39% respectively.

15Health tourists are a subset of Healthcare Travellers referring only to inbound patients from foreign countries excluding expats and students residing in Malaysia.

Moving forward, cementing our position as the World’s Healthcare Marvel, Malaysia will surpass our prime position in inbound patient volume to become the world’s leader by revenue with an aspirational USD1billion by 2025, and ultimately become the leading global healthcare destination.