ECONOMIST.COM

BEAUTY AND THE BEACH

Jul 9th 2004 

For your next holiday, why not head for a hospital?

A new type of vacation is emerging from our obsession with the way we look: a combination of hospital and beach. Pop in for an op; then stop off to recuperate at a nearby resort. A number of tourist destinations are already promoting this "op-and-stop" idea. In South Africa, the "scalpel safari" has been a recognized phenomenon now for a number of years, combining cosmetic surgery in Johannesburg or Cape Town with a trip to the bush.

For many types of cosmetic surgery, though, the natural advantages lie with Rio de Janeiro. There, even local factory workers save for their next bit of body sculpting, emboldening them to go ever further on the city's famed Copacabana beach. The expertise of Rio's scalpel wielders is second to none--a Brazilian surgeon recently won a prize for the best hair transplant in the world--and Rio's beach hotels are ideal for lurking in anonymity until you dare swap the bandages for the bikini.

Bangkok is another city trying to get in on the act. Bumrungrad
Hospital in Bangkok looks more like a luxury hotel than a medical
centre--understandably, since almost a third of its patients are
foreigners who fly in to have operations performed by its
western-trained doctors for a snip of the price at home.

Thailand has already developed a special niche in the op-and-stop market: it leads the world in sex-change operations. Once, the traffic in this trade went one-way to Sweden. Now you can find an op and a holiday in Thailand that is guaranteed to send you home feeling and looking like an entirely different person.

Another niche with potentially rich pickings is aesthetic dentistry, a
market for which Costa Rica, Turkey and (again) South Africa are making a big play. London boasts a large number of South African dentists whose rates can neutralize any of the effects of laughing gas. Why not go to South Africa itself and have the work done privately by someone who may well have been trained at the same school, throw in a safari and a week on the Cape, and come home with change to spare?

CHEAP AND CHEERFUL
For more serious surgery, Russia is the place for kidney transplants. The surgeons there have the unbeatable combination of the former Soviet Union's high standards of education, practical experience from their military incursion into nearby Afghanistan in the 1980s and extraordinarily low prices. But, of course, the beaches are not too good. For the benefits of communist medicine, plus a beach to strut your new bits and pieces, you have to head for Havana.

A number of factors is sure to keep this business growing now that attitudes to travel have returned to normal. Price, skill and anonymity are the crucial ingredients. A heart bypass at Bumrungrad Hospital is about one-eighth of the cost of the same operation in New York. Likewise, a porcelain crown in Istanbul can cost as little as one-eighth of what it would in Los Angeles. You don't need too many crowns to cover the cost of the trip, and some shopping in the bazaar besides.

Skills come next--a combination of training and practical experience. The alumni of the best teaching hospitals today are spread all over the world, and the richest experience is no longer found in Harley Street or Mount Sinai. India's Aravind Eye Hospital, for instance, carries out cataract surgery like Henry Ford made Model Ts.

Anonymity matters, too. Nobody wants to face their friends on Bond Street or Fifth Avenue with the bruises still showing. Surgeon & Safari, a leading South African agent in the op-and-stop business, advertises itself as offering "Privacy in Paradise", shuttling its clients discreetly and directly from theatre to hotel room.

TIM HINDLE is THE ECONOMIST'S management editor.