Ah, San Diego—sun, sand, beaches… and hospitals.

A reportin Stat News says that San Diego is betting on converting plain oldtourism into medical tourism, hoping to attract patients toits hospitals with the city's other attractions serving as icing onthe cake, so to speak.

A philanthropist has actually funded a marketing campaignpitching the city that way to patients in need of care, but simplyadvertising the city as a health care destination does not medicaltourism make, according to Maria Todd, a business consultant whofocuses on health tourism strategy. In the report, Todd is quotedsaying, “We have sun. We have beach. We have hotel. We havehospital. We have doctor. Throw them all in a bowl and call itmedical tourism? No, it doesn't work like that.”

In fact, it's a lot harder, the report points out. Local hotelshave to be equipped to handle the care needs of patientsrecuperating from various types of treatments, while hospitals needto train doctors to be culturally sensitive to patients coming fromdifferent parts of the world—including tending to such requirementsas more interpreters, special prayer rooms or even luxury cars toferry patients to and from the hospital.

And then there's the food issue. Not only do hospital cafeteriasneed to broaden their menu choices to include global flavors andculinary favorites, they'll have to be able to handle faith-baseddietary restrictions.

The report cites Josef Woodman, who runs Patients BeyondBorders, a yearly publication that analyzes the medical tourismindustry, saying that just building out that infrastructure cancost as much as $1 million for each culture or part of the world amedical tourism campaign targets.

San Diego, however, is convinced of its other attractions—suchas beaches on offer year-round, when all the Mayo Clinic can offerin addition to health care is a Minnesota winter.

So far none of the city's hospitals have kicked in any cash forthe marketing effort, saying it's too soon. That could beespecially true since people coming to the U.S. for medical caregenerally seek true cutting-edge treatments, and would choose theMayo Clinic over beaches for that reason.

But then there's Las Vegas, which has, the report says, built amedical tourism industry by zeroing in on plastic surgery,bariatric surgery, fertility services, and some orthopedicprocedures. But they got backing from the gaming and hotel industryahead of time, then put together the infrastructure to support thepitch they were making to potential patients.

Still, San Diego is game, and determined to make the publicaware of what it can offer. In the report, Joe Terzi, president andCEO of the San Diego Tourism Authority, is quoted saying, “We don'tthink we're going to compete with MD Anderson or Mayo Clinic—theyhave worldwide reputations and names they've developed. We'rereally just trying to elevate the opportunity for people tounderstand that San Diego is a center of health care.”