Dr Beat Richner addressing the Amadeus Industry Leaders Forum: “Your money or your blood”.

Inside the air-conditioned meeting room, we were discussing technology and the way it was changing customers and the way they would book travel.

Outside, hundreds of women with their children were sitting by the side of the road, waiting patiently for their free medical treatments. These women will probably never travel abroad but hopefully, their children and their children’s children will get to.

Welcome to the Kantha Bopha IV Hospital & conference centre in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Both facilities are situated right next to each other. One is where minds meet, the other is where bodies are healed.

The conference centre has all the paraphernalia you need to run a successful event. Its main auditorium seats 650 (theatre style) while a second hall takes 200 in the same seating. There are four breakout rooms for 60 people each. Coffee breaks are downstairs and catering is done by hotels such as the Raffles Grand D’Angkor which itself is building a new ballroom (200 seated for dinner) opening soon.

The conference centre is just one of the many ways the enterprising Dr Beat Richner has of raising the funds he needs to run the newest pediatric hospital in Siem Reap.

Dr Richner is known worldwide for his work in saving the children of Cambodia. He first worked in Kantha Bopha I as a young pediatrician in 1974-1975, until mayhem befell the country. As soon as peace was restored, he returned, helped restore the original hospital and opened it in September 1992.

Since then, he has been responsible for building Kantha Bopha II in 1996, a third Hospital, Jayavarman VII in Angkor in 1999 and in 2001, he opened the Maternity hospital, also in Angkor.

The conference centre: Has all the paraphernalia needed for a successful event.

I had long wanted to meet the man who is also an accomplished cellist and gives cello performances every weekend, proceeds of which go to, of course, the hospitals.

I got my chance this trip when he agreed to open the Amadeus Asia Pacific Industry Leaders Forum 2006.

You can tell Dr Richner is a man with a mission and like all those lucky enough to have found a clear purpose in life, he gets straight to the point.

Last year, the hospital treated 96,000 children, 80 percent of whom have no chances of survival without hospitalization. Everyday, it receives about 3,000 outpatients. The centre heals 85% of all sick children it sees. There are 40-50 deliveries a day.

Running the centre requires US$20 million a year. The government foots eight percent of the bill, the rest comes from private donations and funds it manages to raise itself. The doctor’s “Beatocello” concerts raise up to US$5 million in ticket fees a year.

“For those under 50, we say, give blood. For those over 50, we ask you to give money. It’s very easy – blood or money,” he says,

The Swiss doctor makes it a point of telling tourists that what they experience in the hotels is not “the real Cambodia”.

His theory is we should approach medicine like we do travel. “When you travel to places like Cambodia, you expect the same standards and facilities as back home. But somehow you don’t demand the same standards of hospitals.

“The medical facilities of a country should not reflect the economic condition – travel does not.”

As I sat in the meeting room, which by the way has some of the best acoustics and technical set-ups I have experienced in my career as a conference junkie, I couldn’t help but admire this man for his compassion and determination to give the children of Cambodia a chance at the best treatment no money is needed to buy.

It really gives a whole new reason to the purpose of meetings and why we should meet more often in places such as these.