During the first week of July (2024) medical professionals and those interested in Medical tourism met in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico for their fourth annual bilingual conference.  Mr. Frank Nuñez of Mexicali founded this bilingual conference four years ago and since its founding the conference has attracted an ever-greater number of delegates from across Mexico along with delegates from numerous other nations.  Over these last four years Dr. Peter Tarlow of College Station, Texas has addressed the attendees on various aspects of tourism security and the important role that tourism security plays in the medical tourism industry.

At the 2024 conference Tarlow emphasized that without good tourism security medical tourism will cease to be a profitable enterprise. He also recommended that people in medical tourism read the book México Destino Seguro.

[1] The book’s authors are, Dr. Peter Tarloiw, Dr. Manuel Flores Sonduk, Mtro Alejandro Zuniga Bernal and Mtro. Rogelio Márquez Valdivia. To purchase the book (written in Spanish) contact Geraaldo Ruiz at +52 492 583 1642

During the conference Tarlow emphasized several principles of tourism security, among these he noted that  visitors almost always have alternatives and therefore a tourism destination must be aware of its competitors, that often the public has a weak understanding of a location’s geography, that medical tourism must create a safe destination not only for the patient but also the patient’s family and that negative publicity not only hurts the local tourism industry but also its medical businesses from dentistry to pharmaceutics and from surgeons to hospitals.  Tarlow noted that a location can have wonderful doctors and well-equipped hospitals but without a sense of security patients will find competing locales.

For this reason, Tarlow stressed that good tourism security entails the protection of the visitor (and he noted that some visitors can be in a locale for nefarious reasons), the protection of the staffs (both medical and others), the protection of the environment including ease of transportation and both road and sidewalk safety and protection of the community’s reputation.  Concerning this latter point, Tarlow addressed the recent United States government warning regarding Tijuana and cited the United States State Department which published in May of 2024 the following:  “violent crime – such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery – is widespread and common in Mexico.” The city of Tijuana is now considered to be the worst hotspot in Mexico for murder and car theft, according to data from Mexico’s Ministry of Defense (SEDENA).

From this perspective Tarlow reminded the delegates that Tijuana must do a better job in protecting both its visitors and economy by offer world-class bilingual tourism infrastructure and services, and having well-trained bilingual tourism police and security agents.   On the positive side Tarlow recognized the kindness of the Mexican people and their willingness to be helpful to foreign visitors and to golden-age visitors. 

At the conference Tarlow reminded the attendees that tourism security is not simply about weapons, guards, and hidden cameras. It is also about understanding the economics of security, reviewing your liability issues and protecting a community’s reputation.  Some of the ideas that he suggested included

-Determine what are the security needs of the subgroups within your tourism community. By matching the types of people who frequent your medical offering with a profile of your typical guest  including economic class, language, and cultural needs.

-Review and determine who is liable and for what in case of a safety/security mishap. Make sure to review at least once a year with both your insurance agent and your lawyer where your company and you are open to a lawsuit. Make sure you know where and when you are responsible to provide visitor security measures. Furthermore, be careful to review any changes in the law concerning the relationship between a medical tourism service provider and the customer/visitor/patient.

-List and then review all of your security tools. Divide these tools into sub-factors. For example, list what public service announcements you make, where signage can be useful and what brochures you may want to distribute.

-Review the overall medical security program for your particular business and for your community.  Make sure that a professional in the security fields identifies with you what threats are most likely to occur.

-Have a medical tourism crisis plan ready.  The best crisis management is to avoid the crisis. Unfortunately, that cannot always be the case. Part of good security is a recovery plan. Think through what plans you might have for several probable crises. Begin by listing the most probable crisis, then divide these crises into sublevels, such as the human side, the economic side, the physical side and the marketing recovery side.

-What quality of life issues impact your overall medical tourism security?  Security specialists know that as a city is beautified, its quality of life rises, its economy rises and its proclivity to crime decreases.  That means that tourism people need to be involved in city tourism beautification programs, not only because they add charm to a community but because they increase not only the bottom line but also help in the fight against many forms of crimes.

Medical tourism security is essential if your medical business is to reach its full potential. Without it there is a high probability of failure; with it not only will your business prosper but so will your entire community.