Inteview with
Mr László Puczkó PhD MA MSc CMC
Travel, Hospitality, Entertainment & Leisure
Strategist
* Mr Laszlo, you are one of the renowned experts in the health care
investment field...can you please give us a chance to know more
about you and this area of business?
I have been working in the field of wellbeing, hospitality, leisure, travel
and experience creation for 25+ years. Of the specialisations, wellbeing
plays the most important role for me.
I look at wellbeing in its widest understanding, ie from leisure and
recreation to healthcare and wellness.
I believe that everything we do can improve our wellbeing. Do not forger
that your wellbeing can be improved even if you are actually ill!
Based on my experience in 40+ countries, medical and wellness travel do
differ. Medical travel is protocol and technology driven with the essential
support of highly trained human capital.
This is simplification of the nature of medical tourism, but gives a good
basis for assessment. If a destination wanted to develop medical tourism
it would need to attract specially skilled consultants and healthcare stuff,
supported by the latest healthcare technology.
On and off-line, that is whereas in wellness tourism creativity, local
cultural and natural resources play significant role. Every destination can
find it wellness story.
Wellness is way less dependent on the same factors as medical tourism.
Whereas in medical tourism the competition compares prices, succes rate
and infection figures, in wellness we compare the intangible components,
e.g. the programming (and not the number of treatments or the size of the
pool).
* Medical tourism wetness a big development in the middle east,
how do you evaluate the sector and what's your opinion?
Given the above characteristics wellness tourism in the Middle East is in
its infancy. The generic wellness supply is already available, of course,
considering luxury spas in high end hotels.
The new developments in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Ajman or by the Red Sea,
of course, do change this landscape. Still, every GCC country, and man
destinations in those countries could further capitalize on its natural and
cultural resources and foster wellness tourism development. The GCC
market grows as well as changes fast, ie developers do need to go beyond
the traditional products.
Medical wellness, i.e. the medicall defined and supervised wellness
services represent great potential in GCC. There are a number of lifestyle
deseases, e.g. diabetes or weight issues that can be prevented by medical
wellness provision.
*You launched recently a consulting services in wellness doing
expertise to the wellness professionals...can you give us a briefing
about it?
We run a very focused and disruptive professional services group. Based
on our in-house intelligence we offer a wide range of options to our
clients from the converging wellbeing, hospitality, leisure and travel
landscape.
To us the most important question is not size of the spa or wellness center
but if that development actually needed a spa or wellness center in the
first place?
