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M. AL-AGEDI

Medical & Health Tourism

Updated: Oct 29, 2023

A rising solution for unsolved growing problems!

Medical & Health Tourism

People traveling for medical treatment dates back thousands of years to when Greeks traveled to Epidauria, a small area in the Saronic Gulf. At least, this is the oldest-dated event.

In the past, it was, people from less-developed countries traveled to medical centers in the higher-developed countries, usually for treatments that were unavailable at home or available with lower quality.

Today, somehow the destinations changed and still changing. Nowadays, people mostly travel from developed countries to developing countries. The reasons are also changing, can be for lower prices, shorter waiting time and few other reasons.

As it is a growing industry, the medical or health tourism term is generating new terms, specifying the sort of treatment, you can hear terms such as dental tourism, fertility tourism, or Wellness tourism, almost all types of health care are available, including psychiatry.

Countries interested and involved in this tourism started earlier to measure their inbound and outbound medical & health tourism.

According to the Medical Tourism Magazine, here are the top 10 medical tourism destinations in the world:

  1. India

  2. Brazil

  3. Malaysia

  4. Thailand

  5. Turkey

  6. Mexico

  7. Costa Rica

  8. Taiwan

  9. South Korea

  10. Singapore

No European countries are in the top 10 list anymore, talking here about countries such as Croatia, Finland, Serbia, and even France sourced #7 in the Medical Tourism Index just 2 years ago in 2016.

The Medical Tourism industry was valued at a staggering USD 100 billion, with a projected growth rate of up to 25% year over year for the next 10 years according to a just-released report issued by VISA and Oxford Economics.

An estimated 3 to 4 percent of the world’s population will travel internationally for healthcare and health-related treatment.

Where does your country stand today in this market and where it will be during the next 10 years?



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