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Medical tourism popular among GCC travellers

DUBAI - The Hamburg Tourist Board has opened a representative office in Dubai, motivated by the high spenders among the GCC travellers.

Medical tourism to Hamburg is also a major incentive for the region’s travellers, according to officials at the board's launch in Dubai yesterday.

Hamburg Tourist Board Marketing Director Dr Bettina Bunge estimated seven per cent of overnight stays were travellers visiting for health reasons.

"Hamburg has very specialised clinics and hospitals," she said. "They're also very good at helping foreign patients - with their living, their families, the culture, food, even the language with staff speaking Arabic. It's everything that makes the whole stay comfortable."

Dr Bunge said that while a specific breakdown wasn't available, she judged the Saudis to be among the highest in traveller numbers to Hamburg, and knee replacement therapy the most common treatment.

Kempinski Hotel Atlantic Hamburg Sales and Marketing Director Andre Stube said the hotel received as much as one-third of their travellers for health visits, one-third for business and one-third for leisure.

"This can be as high as 50 per cent during some times of the year," he said. "The hotel has been attending the Arab Health (Congress and Exhibition) for the past four years with this aim."

Stube said the hotel offered specialised services for Arab travellers and patients, including Arabic speaking staff and transfers from the airport, if required.

However, it remains Gulf states tendency, compared with their European counterparts, for longer, higher spending trips, that spurred Hamburg to become the first city tourism board to establish an office in the region, according to Hamburg Tourist Board Gulf States Director Heike Kamolz.

Arab travellers spent 33,000 nights in Hamburg in 2007, a growth rate of 37.4 per cent over 2006, according to the board.

The main reason for the increase was Emirates' introduction of daily Dubai-Hamburg flights and the city is keen to see the number of flights increase. "We hope for more flights from Emirates and I'm sure they will come in the near future," Heike Kamolz said. "We are aiming for double daily. All the flights have high occupancy."

However, an Emirates spokesperson said there were no immediate plans to increase the number of flights.

"Germany is one of Emirates' key markets and we currently have 49 weekly passenger flights from Dubai, flying double daily into Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Munich. Hamburg, where our A380 cabin finishing work is taking place, is a daily flight. While we are always evaluating opportunities, there are no immediate plans to extend the seven times a week service," the spokesperson said.

The airline has also been lobbying to access other German airports. "It is well known that Emirates wishes to start services to Berlin and Stuttgart and we continue to work to secure these two extra gateways into Germany."