The number of travels around the world to benefit from health services provided abroad is increasing every year. The high level of global demand for health services has influenced the rapid development of the medical tourism industry. Due to these developments in the industry, a global market has emerged, the medical tourism market. Countries operating in the industry are also striving to gain share from this large market or to increase their existing market shares. In this study, different perspective on global phenomenon, medical tourism, medical tourism market, and leader destinations in the industry are examined in detail.
TopThe Concept Of Medical Tourism
Globalization has contributed to emergence of medical tourism (Roy et. al, 2018), which is a way to offer healthcare services to foreign patients in a host country (Rydback & Hyder, 2018). Medical tourism is a kind of niche tourism arising a result of the rapid rise of the number of travels abroad to access to medical services (Suess et. al, 2018). Thus, it has become a global phenomenon in the few decades (Chew & Darmasaputra, 2015).
There is no consensus on the definition of medical tourism (Lee & Spisto, 2007) but it can be defined as travelling across international borders with the intention of obtaining healthcare services (Roy et. al, 2018) in order to find a solution to health problems or improve the health conditions. Although there is a debate whether traveling abroad for obtaining healthcare services should be called as “health tourism” or “medical tourism”, Pocock & Phua (2011) stated that there is a consensus in the related literature that medical tourism is a subset of health tourism. Smith and Puczko (2009) stated that health tourism is composed of medical tourism and wellness tourism, which means that medical tourism is a subset of health tourism. Garcia-Altes (2005) used the term “health tourism”, as an umbrella term, to explain the all health-related tourism activities. Connell (2006) expressed that there should be a differentiation between medical tourism and health tourism, as medical tourism is a correct term used in cases requiring medical operations. Saiprasert (2011) specified that medical tourism and health tourism are two different terms, but the terms are related to each other because medical tourism is conceptually a subset of health tourism. From this point of view, medical tourism is used as a general term in cases involving more aggressive methods (surgeries, etc.) and medical controls where obtaining better health conditions is an essential component of travelling abroad (Connell, 2013). However, Labonté (2013) advocated that the term medical travel is more suitable to explain the phenomenon because medical tourism can mean an add-on to holiday package, which cause misunderstanding that holiday is primary purpose. Although there are many debates on the term, medical tourism is widely accepted to explain this new phenomenon.