Friday, June 17, 2011

Believe what your customers do...not what they say!

To keep things simple, this blog has moved to the IMTJ web site. You can find the Health Tourism Blog here in future. Here's an extract of the latest blog post entitled: "Believe what your customers do...not what they say!"

A recent article in Harvard Business Review, “Four Simple Low Resolution Innovation Tests” highlights the problem faced by anyone who is considering investment in the medical tourism business. How can you know whether people will actually buy your service i.e. whether patients will actually travel abroad to use your services?

Much of the “research” conducted in the medical tourism sector is about what people say they will do.... not about what they actually do. For example, the 2009 Gallup Survey in the USA is frequently used to support the “booming medical tourism market” hypothesis.

The report on this Gallup poll was headed “Americans Consider Crossing Borders for Medical Care”. It found that “up to 29% of Americans would consider traveling abroad for medical procedures”.

Now the key words here are “will consider”. It does not say “will travel” or “have travelled”. And there lies the problem.......

.........Read the full article at IMTJ: Go to "Believe what your customers do...not what they say!"


6 comments:

Mike said...

Now I understand why most people consider medical tourism especially baby boomers. The cost, the place and the idea of retiring to paradise. I guess I might also consider it in the future.

market research reports said...

wow great i have read many articles about this topic and everytime i learn something new i dont think it will ever stop always new info , Thanks for all of your hard work!

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Fantastic info for tourists..

market research reports said...

Very interesting and comprehensive report. Thank you.

Lower said...

Keith, great point. In consumer research, purchase intent has always been the evasive measure. Seems to be just as true for MT as it is for chocolate bars. After over a decade in healthcare marketing and communications, am looking at this on a region-specific basis. Would like to talk to you more.

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I must agree with your point as i have experience with it..And all the information given are clear..