Reference no: EM13336595

Medical tourism has been a growing phenomenon in the last 15 years. As medical cost has skyrocketed in the United States, even people with health insurance have faced extremely high out-of-pocket expenses for medical treatments. Meanwhile, the same medical services cost as little as 10 percent of the US prices in several Central and South American countries. Therefore, a lot of Americans have decided to actually travel to these countries to seek medical treatments. A lot of times these trips are packaged to include some tourism and sightseeing activities, combining medical care with vacation. In certain cases, US insurance companies have actually paid for the trips, saving themselves a lot of money in the process.
St. Helen is a modern hospital in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. It has a lot of medical doctors on its staff, who have studied in the US and are US certified. It provides a full service of medical procedures, from plastic surgery to heart transplants and has an excellent reputation in Ecuador. The prices it charges range between 10-15% of the prices of the average US hospital.
St. Helen wants to attract Americans who either cannot afford medical care in the US or are looking for a better deal.

1. Who is the primary target market of St. Helen in terms of medical tourism?

2. What is the image St. Helen should project to the diverse stakeholders? Describe it in a short statement (20-word limit).

3. What social media should be used and how should they be structured to help St. Helen maximize the number of patients from the United States?

4. Create a Twitter message with the purpose of introducing St. Helen to potential customers. The message should be viral and meet the criteria for "sticky" messages:

a. It has to be simple

b. It has to be unexpected

c. It has to be concrete

d. It has to be credible