Sports & medical tourism prospects: Just all talk

Due to the coronavirus scare, a lot of companies worldwide are on the red. Worse, if this will drag on for months, some will even be on the brink of financial disaster. Sadly, most of these companies belong, directly or indirectly, to the tourism industry. An industry that we are also trying to develop and bank on.

There is no stopping us though from pursuing what we aimed to do as far as our tourism initiatives are concerned. This pandemic is so temporary and will soon pass. The real problem is, we simply love to talk, just all talk.

For instance, for many years now, we have always been harping about the prospects of sports and medical tourism. Agreeably, these are both good and promising. However, what have we done so far? Just all talk.

Undeniably, Las Vegas is a good example of how sports tourism helps the economy. As we all know, Las Vegas hosts the wealthiest fights in boxing. In every fight, there was no denying that while ring gladiators went home with hundreds of millions, still, Las Vegas, Nevada ended up with more.  Ironically, in some of those great fights, Las Vegas, Nevada raked in hundreds of millions of dollars because in one corner of the ring there happens to be a citizen of a third world country. The man the world calls the Pacman, Manny Pacquiao.

Indeed, as hotels are fully booked and casinos are packed with high rollers, hundreds of millions of dollars have surely changed hands. That, in essence, is the real contribution of sports tourism to the more than US$146 billion economy of the State of Nevada. A state where tourism industry, in general, remains the largest employer.

It is not a requisite though that we have great fighters like Manny Pacquiao and world class stables of boxers for sports tourism to succeed. If this is a requisite, then, Las Vegas, Nevada will never become a home of great fights and bankable sports tourism because it only has one notable world boxing champion in Floyd Mayweather.

Notably, sports, as a form of entertainment, may also be better than concerts because of pride and patriotism that is attached to it. However, like concerts, we need big-time and well-oiled promoters who can willingly put their money on the line. We need the likes of Bob Arum, Oscar de la Hoya, Gary Shaw, etc. to see the dream fights go. Do we have them in our midst? Even if they are, they will only do so if they profit from it. To make certain, they would like to see those amusement taxes gone or, at least, brought down almost to the ground.

Moreover, we must also realize that not having amusement taxes does not necessarily lead to more productions of big events at all. If the intention really is to promote sports tourism and have more opportunities to see international sports spectacles, we need to have at least one comfortable venue not an oven-hot coliseum. Seeing this realized, we can expect patronage not just among Filipinos but foreign visitors as well. Consequently, we can expect higher hotel occupancy rate and boost tourism.

Moreover, some may argue that medical tourism can be a good lead too. However, while we are too optimistic about its prospects due to our relative success in traditional tourism, it seems that we did not realize that medical tourism is totally different from the rest. For one, it is not a tour or travel for predominantly recreational or leisure purposes but out of necessity. Mindfully, it is not a kind tourism where even a commercial sex worker can get involve. It needs huge investments in hospital equipment and the best in our already depleted number of health practitioners.

Yes, it is true that medical tourism is growing rapidly. However, there are many factors that led to the increasing prominence of medical travel and not all success ingredients in traditional tourism can be counted upon. Principally, the reasons run from high cost of their countries’ health care to longer waiting times for certain treatments or procedures. Coupled with the ease and affordability of international travel and the vastly improved technology and health care standards in other countries, medical travel has been viewed as truly the sunny side of tourism.

True, medical tourists are coming from anywhere in the globe. They are coming from the wealthy nations in Europe, Middle East, Japan, the United States and Canada. These are countries with relatively large moneyed populations and have high cost of health care. However, just because there is a huge market is not enough reason for us to join the bandwagon. A huge potential market doesn’t assure us of success. This potential market is knowledgeable enough to know where to get treatment. Without doing an honest assessment of our real worth or capabilities, we will only end up salivating while staring at a huge market that we can’t tap.

Despite these limitations, however, sports and medical tourism are still worth delving in.