WHERE IMTJ LEADS… OTHERS FOLLOW!

If you’re thinking of attending a medical tourism conference this Spring… there are plenty to choose from! But.. if you are serious about the medical travel business, there is only one choice to make!

If you’re thinking of attending a medical tourism conference this Spring… there are plenty to choose from! But… if you are serious about the medical travel business, there is only one choice to make!

On May 21-24 2018, we are taking the IMTJ Medical Travel Summit to Athens.

Weigh up your options and consider the following.

Fact not fiction

What you will not hear at the IMTJ Medical Travel Summit:

  • “The medical-tourism market is set to become a $3 trillion-dollar industry by 2025”
  • “The medical tourism market is experiencing exponential growth”
  • “The buyers? They’re just everywhere!”

What you will hear… fact not fiction.

People who know… about medical travel

IMTJ is about sharing knowledge and insight of a complex market. We don’t trawl the speaker lists at other events to build a speaker list. We think through our agenda. We seek advice from our network of experts. Our speaker faculty represents around 1,000 years of real life experience in the medical travel sector!

An open door not a closed environment

You may have heard the stories. Conferences that turn people away or block entry because the organisers are fearful of competitors or don’t like to hear a contrary view… Conferences that impose restrictive clauses on speakers. “You can speak here, provided that you don’t speak there”. The IMTJ Medical Travel Summit is open to all.

Buyers who buy, not hosted buyers who don’t

“Hosted Buyer” programmes are used to encourage healthcare providers to pay money to sponsor and attend conferences. From my experience of a multitude of such programmes, probably one in ten “Hosted Buyers” actually has any buying power! Here are some typical “Hosted Buyers” that I meet:

  • The Buyer who is not a buyer at all! Who is in fact a Seller, at the event to sell services to others. I sell stuff… why do conferences invite me as a “Hosted Buyer”?
  • The medical tourism facilitator who has little real business, or is a start-up with zero patient throughput.
  • The “Government Buyer” who isn’t actually responsible for commissioning patient care.
  • The Buyer… too many of them… who is along for the free ride. Offer someone a free trip and accommodation in an attractive location, and “what’s not to like”?

At the IMTJ Medical Travel Summit, there will be plenty of business to business networking opportunities What we aim to attract are buyers who… actually buy.

Great speakers… those who know, not those who say they know

Our speakers are selected and vetted. The speaker applications for our Summit far outnumber the available speaker slots. We don’t choose someone unless we can be 90% certain (we can never be 100% right!) that:

  • they know their topic and;
  • can present effectively!

Fresh ideas… not out of date thinking

For the last ten years, people have heard the same old story at medical tourism conferences. Henry Ford said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”.

We aim to change the thinking in our business sector. Few address the real issues. Few give you an honest appraisal of what’s going on in the marketplace. We challenge people’s thinking. We ask questions. And we aim to provide fresh ideas.

Insight… intelligence, intellect and academia

For many years, the academics and researchers who have invested their time in understanding this complex market have been ignored by the business sector. In 2018, in Athens, we will hold our second IMTJ Academic Conference. We bring together academics from around the world who provide valuable and objective insight into the industry.

A celebration, not a circus

At the IMTJ Medical Travel Awards, we celebrate innovation and excellence in the medical travel sector. Unlike other awards in the sector, the IMTJ Awards are judged by an independent panel of 24 medical travel experts from around the globe, using an objective, online scoring system against set criteria. The judging panel picks the winners. I don’t have a say!

So, the choice is yours.

Come to Athens 21-24 May 2018… and be surprised, be enthused, and be informed about what’s really happening in the medical travel sector.

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As Editor in Chief of International Medical Travel Journal (IMTJ) and a Healthcare Consultant for LaingBuisson, Keith Pollard is one of Europe’s leading experts on private healthcare, medical tourism and cross border healthcare, providing consultancy and research services, and attending and contributing to major conferences across the world on the subject. He has been involved in private healthcare, medical travel and cross border healthcare since the 1990s. His career has embraced the management of private hospitals in the UK, research and feasibility studies for healthcare ventures, the marketing and business development aspects of healthcare and medical travel and publishing, research and consultancy on cross border healthcare.