From competition to collaboration : policy-making lessons to be learnt from tourism when designing a national health care system

Globalisation has led to the creation of a global village in which competition and sameness increased competitive isolation. Organisations are finding it difficult to survive in competitive isolation and a gradual shift from the individual competitive organisation to inter-organisational collaboration occurred. In this article the author highlights how tourism and health care are linked together in a globalised society. By integrating activities along the value chain, it is argued that tourism and health care can work together to create products and services that have more value combined, serving to uplift communities and reduce inequities. Important policy-making lessons are to be learned from tourism as this industry is becoming the biggest service industry in the world. Health care is cost-intensive, weighs heavily on the private sector for service efficiency and shows gross inequities. However, the public and private sectors in health and tourism are about coping with service competition (partly consumer-driven, competition-driven and technology-driven) and are complex industries intertwined with concepts of well-being as they deal with the use of natural and cultural resources. The article questions the reasons for the successes of tourism and investigates the reasons for failure in the health care system. A shift from the transactional to the relational approach provides the building blocks on which these sectors can collaborate and build partnerships. It is concluded that partnerships and collaboration place sustainable development objectives in a more holistic and equitable framework, as collaboration increases efficiency levels and provides a stronger basis from which the public sector can meet service delivery demands.