Authors
Mrs. Sindhu R Menon1, Dr. Veena Sreejith2. 1Assistant Professor, Centre for Management Studies, Presidency College, Bangalore; 2Diabetologist, Diabetes Care Centre, Kochar Road, Sasthamangalam, Trivandrum
Abstract
Over the last few years many corporate and foreign hospitals have set up centers in Bangalore offering world class healthcare facilities. They have changed the healthcare situation in the city by making available facilities that were hitherto available only abroad. However to provide these facilities hospitals need to invest heavily in infrastructure and medical teams. With the city emerging as a major center for medical tourism, many of these hospitals offer hospitality services as well, at par with that of five star hotels, making hospital stay a very pleasant experience indeed. This calls in for further investments. For faster recovery of returns on these investments hospitals need to increase both the number of patients and number of times each patient visits the hospital. This is where marketing becomes relevant. In earlier days hospitals never used to market themselves. Healthcare is seen as a social service in India and there was a certain stigma to hospitals doing marketing activities. However, now we have a whole set of hospitals that do not believe in this philosophy. With these hospitals resorting to rather persuasive ways of attracting patients, the whole marketing landscape has changed. This paper attempts to map the emerging landscape of hospital marketing.