Healthcare and hospitality may seem worlds apart, yet they share more common ground than most realize. While one focuses on healing and the other on comfort, both industries are discovering they have a lot to learn from each other.
This convergence represents one of the most compelling developments in modern medical administration. As healthcare systems worldwide grapple with rising costs and operational efficiency challenges, industry leaders are looking to hospitality models for solutions.
After all, both industries revolve around people, where trust, empathy, and attention to detail determine outcomes as much as systems and infrastructure do.
In a recent webinar with EHL, Patrik Bruhlmann, CEO & Board Director of Pacific Healthcare Group of Companies, explored these fascinating parallels between two industries that share more than just etymological roots.
Drawing from decades of experience in healthcare management across multiple markets, he shared his views on financial structures, future developments, and the career opportunities awaiting hospitality graduates who are curious about transitioning into medical service management.
This article captures key insights from that conversation.
The relationship between hospitality and healthcare begins with language itself. The words “hospital” and “hospitality” share a Latin root that speaks to safety, care, and shelter.
Yet in practice, hospitals and hotels have grown into very different institutions. That divergence raises an important question about how much hospitals could still learn from hospitality in making patients feel more comfortable.
In a previous conversation we’ve had, you mentioned a common root of the term “hospitality” and “hotels” and hospitals, right? But hotels and hospitals are so different now.
PB: Yes, I think it’s always good to see where the word always comes from – the word (‘hospital’) comes from Latin (‘hospes’) and gives you a quick overview of what it actually means – to provide a safe place to sleep, which is associated with shelter and friendliness. With hotels, we clearly know that this is how they must be; otherwise, they won’t attract customers.
But in a hospital environment, people sometimes forget that this is a big part of recovery as well: how well the patient feels, how properly looked after they are – not only in terms of the doctors or a prescription or diagnosis, but also in terms of care, which means it also involves the nursing and cleaning staff.
[With that in mind,] I really would hope that hospitals recruit proper F&B and rooms division people, because it’s so simple to provide what is a normal offering in any hotel in the world. And there are good one-star and two-star hotels, it’s not just about five-star hotels – it’s really about providing what a patient wants to pay or can pay for.
Bruhlmann’s point makes clear that comfort and care extend far beyond medical treatment. Recruiting service professionals with hospitality backgrounds could help hospitals elevate patient experience in ways that align more closely with recovery.
Building on this theme of differences, the discussion next turns to a fundamental issue that separates the two industries: how services are paid for.
In hospitality, customers have immediate control over their spending and choices, whether selecting a hotel, switching rooms, or walking out of a restaurant.
Medicine operates under very different dynamics, influenced by self-pay patients, insurance structures, and public systems. These differences shape both consumer behavior and institutional strategy.
You mentioned that one of the bigger differences between hotels and hospitals is who pays for what – and that changes the buying pattern as well.
PB: That’s correct. My father always used to say, “The one who pays is the one who says what’s going to happen.” And hotels obviously see that immediately – if I’m not happy, I walk out of the door and there’s another three or four two-star hotels around the corner.
And whether I pay $50, $100, or $200, I can change it every day; I can also do that in the restaurant business, the airline business etc. In the hospital, that is also true if I’m a self-pay patient. [But even then,] how can I rate a doctor or hospital?
There’s no TripAdvisor for hospitals where I can say, “The appendix was very well-removed, and the food was good in the hospital.” If you are lucky enough to have very expensive private insurance, then you can go to any hospital, request any doctor, change hospitals, and look at different options.
But your insurance may just give you a chain of hospitals that you can go to, with no free doctor choices. And in the government hospitals, you usually get in the queue and see whichever doctor is available at that time.
A lot of countries have universal healthcare, where basically everyone gets good healthcare provided by government hospitals, and that’s also a big difference. So yes, I think one of the biggest differences is who pays in the hospital and medical sector.
Understanding who pays for services sets the stage for a deeper look into the financial side of medical services. Like hotels, hospitals manage rooms, facilities, and operations, but the way they generate and measure revenue is far more complex.
This opens up a comparison between revenue streams, capacity utilization, and the challenge of balancing fixed and variable costs.
What are the revenue streams of a hospital compared to a hotel? Do you think that hospitals carry out efficient revenue management with the time of doctors?
PB: I think the revenue streams of a hotel are classic F&B, rooms, and whatever you can generate in the space of hotels. Hospitals have a similar simple structure. On one hand you have rooms or inpatient care, and that is inclusive of F&B and the bed and what’s needed there. In hotels, you may measure revenue per available room (RevPAR).
Similarly, in hospitals, you have revenue per doctor, and they have commission structures in terms of what they produce. You also have the utilization rate of operating theatres – how many hours of an operating theatre are used? How many hours is an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner used?
A machine that only operates 12 hours, whether it’s an X-ray machine, and MRI scanner, or an ultrasound machine, is lost money. So, hospitals try to extend hours – for example, you do lab tests and all diagnostics before or after hours so that when the doctor works, all of that becomes revenue-generating for the doctor.
It’s also about square meterage – how many square meters can you utilize for treatment rooms, the operating theatre, the outpatient clinic etc. Back-of-house in hospitals are also usually kept to a minimum.
Very few hospitals have a swimming pool or gym, because it’s usually not revenue-generating. No insurance will pay for you to have a bit of a swim in the rehab, except in a rehab clinic – that’s another business again but usually, those non-revenue-generating areas are minimized.
Bruhlmann’s perspective highlights just how much hospitals rely on optimizing space, time, and resources. Unlike hotels, where services such as gyms or pools can add brand value, hospitals must focus squarely on revenue-generating activities.
This reliance on efficiency raises a broader question: how do fixed and flexible costs affect the long-term sustainability of medical service institutions?
What about fixed versus flexible costs?
PB: That’s a very important aspect of any business: what is a fixed cost and what is a variable cost? That shows you the flexibility of the business and especially nowadays, during COVID times, [it is very important to know] how much you can cut off your costs to bring down your break-even points.
And hospitals are terrible at this because almost everything is a fixed cost. Doctors and nurses are usually a scarce resource, so you have difficulties in recruiting and retraining them and they become almost a fixed cost – that’s the bad thing about fixed costs.
But the good thing about fixed costs, as we all know in the airline and hotel business, is that as soon as you go over the break-even point, it’s cash into your pocket right away, and the more throughput you have in the hospital the better.
By drawing parallels with airlines and hotels, Bruhlmann illustrates the challenges hospitals face in cost management. While high fixed costs make healthcare difficult to scale down, they also mean that once operations break-even, additional volume can be highly profitable.
These financial realities lead naturally to another pressing issue: how innovations such as e-healthcare might disrupt the traditional hospital model.
Technology is changing healthcare delivery around the world, from telemedicine to home-based care. The promise is greater efficiency and accessibility, but the question remains whether such models are truly sustainable, given the reliance on diagnostics and medical infrastructure.
What’s your view on e-healthcare? For example, if we can do the diagnosis or basic treatments at home, then there’s no need to go to hospitals or for infrastructure; so perhaps the cost of medical services could be reduced.
PB: I was just looking at that business model and there’s a large company in India who provides even ICU (intensive care unit) care at home – they provide all the machines [at the patient’s home]. Unfortunately, they don’t make money, and because of scarcity of talent, it has its limitations.
Which doctor wants to go to your home? A doctor sells time – so would a doctor want to spend one hour driving to your home, look at you for five minutes and drive another hour to the next patient? Probably not, because he only charges for the five minutes where he sees the patient. From an economical point of view, it’s much better if a doctor sees you at the hospital.
[Regarding e-healthcare,] during COVID, we have seen an increase of patients seeking a doctor’s opinion [via video call] on a computer. But [you still have to do] lab tests; you need to take blood, take urine, you need to press – “does it hurt here?” You need to go through diagnostics tests and again, the machine that gives you the diagnostic ability is in the hospital.
In order for a doctor to make an informed decision of what treatment is good, [it needs to be done in person] – unless it’s a simple fever and he says, “Go to the pharmacy and buy ibuprofen or paracetamol.” This is again a reality check of where and how revenue is generated, and how an e-model can be sustained. But definitely, the diagnostics business will become a much bigger part of the hospital or healthcare system.
As Bruhlmann notes, e-healthcare has undeniable potential but also inherent limits. Video calls and remote consultations cannot fully replace diagnostics, nor can they resolve the economic challenge of doctors’ time.
Looking beyond technology, another area of innovation is in how societies care for their aging populations, particularly through luxury senior living models that blend the two.
What do you think about luxury senior living? Do you think those industries will grow faster than traditional hospitals?
PB: That’s an interesting business model and you have different models there. “Does it make money?” –that’s the basic question everyone usually asks. Aged care is very expensive and the problem with aged care is also who is paying for it – is it the person him/herself, the family, insurance, or the government?
There are some interesting aged care models in Australia, where you basically have a tiered approach: First, you buy into an aged cared facility like you’re buying an apartment, and you stay there until, for example, you cannot walk or have an underlying sickness.
You then move into a room where you have a nurse and if that is not enough, you’re transferred gain into a higher care environment. And when you die, the apartment or share that you bought in that senior living environment goes back into the pool, so that gives them the ability to re-sell space.
And you can do a little research on these companies and see their financials – they’re not great. Because again, it’s about people – who is taking care of the elderly; where do you recruit them and what is their cost? Unfortunately, I have not seen a huge financial attraction from retirement villages.
I think that can come, but when is the time? It’s difficult. As you know, timing is everything. If you’ve invested too early, you’ll go bust. If you invest tomorrow and there are already 20 operators, you’re too late.
I think that will be an interesting space to watch and – for example, just thinking out loud: during this COVID time, with so many empty hotels, which hotel operator would have the guts to say, “It’s going to be empty for the rest of its life, why don’t I transform this operation into a new operation that has a different life cycle?”
There are, of course, many hotels who operate as COVID quarantine wards – but do they have the guts to say, “No. COVID will go away, and then there will be something else coming; I will cater for the elderly and do that in cooperation with hospitals, where doctors come and visit etc.” – would such a business model be more viable now [than before COVID]?
Here, the parallels to hospitality come full circle. Senior living facilities resemble hotels in structure and service, yet they face unique challenges in staffing and financial sustainability.
The idea of converting underused hotel properties into retirement or care facilities suggests how fluid the boundaries between these industries can be. From there, the discussion shifts toward individuals considering careers that bridge both fields.
For students and professionals in hospitality, the question often arises: how can their skills transfer into medical care? The answer lies not only in operational expertise but also in understanding the culture and language of medicine.
What would you suggest if a student would be interested in pursuing healthcare management after graduation? What positions would be available in the industry?
PB: I think good private hospitals should recruit directly into their system. But nevertheless, I think to go via a service provider, whether they’re F&B or a provider of beds [could also work] – and I think [working via these areas] also gives you a bit more credibility with hospitals when you say, “I know this industry. I know this area.”
Because there’s also some kind of snobbism that one has to deal with [in hospitals] – the doctors and medical service providers are very ‘untouchable’ and if you don’t use a certain vocabulary when speaking in a hospital environment, people will think, “Why don’t you know those 10 words that you should use in a hospital?” So, I think it may be easier to go via annex industries like I did.
I don’t think there’s any university degree per se or full four-year course that you could do. But there are definitely annex courses, particularly in the US, where big private hospital chains are operating, that will allow you to dive a bit deeper into both the vocabulary and the running of hospitals and what is needed there.
Bruhlmann’s advice reinforces the value of credibility and adaptability. Entering healthcare through service-related functions provides both practical experience and the cultural fluency needed to thrive in this environment.
With that, the conversation closes on a note of opportunity, showing how graduates can bring fresh perspectives into an industry where the human touch remains essential.
This conversation highlights how much healthcare can learn from hotels in terms of service culture, efficiency, and adaptability. Hospitals may not have the same freedom of choice as hotels, yet the principles of patient comfort, streamlined operations, and attentive care remain central to both.
As medical service systems evolve, particularly with the rise of digital services and changing demographic needs, the crossover between these industries will only grow more relevant.
For professionals and students, the interview underscores the breadth of opportunity beyond hotels and restaurants. Healthcare represents a sector where service-oriented skills can directly enhance patient well-being and operational performance.
Whether through hospital management, support services, or adjacent industries, the potential for meaningful and impactful careers is clear.