The Effects of COVID-19 on Health Tourism and Tourist Health

Introduction

After the reporting of the first case in Wuhan, China, to the World Health Organization (WHO) in December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic caused millions of deaths with the international circulation of travel and commercial exchange around the world (WHO, 2021). As of 2021, each country continues to take precautions by its own conditions, both with the recommendations of the World Health Organization and the work of scientists. These measures include but not limited to; closing borders, partial travel restrictions, entry and exit screening, quarantine of passengers (Burns et al., 2020). Necessary precautions for holding down the outbreak conducted to radical social and economic decisions such as closing international borders and / or restricting border crossings, limiting social activities and even prohibiting intercity travel around the world and activities in many business lines came to a halt. Tourism is one of the economic activities most affected by the pandemic situation. On the other hand, tourism mobility is also an important factor in the spread of infectious diseases.

Regarding the situation from this perspective, it is clear that health and tourism are related. There are two different consequences of this relation; health tourism and tourist health. In broad terms, health tourism is defined as the traveling of people to different locations to receive health services (Ross, 2001). Traveling with the aim of health brings along the international currency flow. Thus, health tourism and related activities induce an inflow of foreign currency to companies of both the health and tourism sectors. The other concept introduced by the relation of health and tourism is tourists' health. All the activities regarding the health of the tourist, including the preventive measures against diseases and conservation of the current health status of the tourists, may introduce negative effects on the whole tourism sector, especially during outbreaks. One of the most important examples of this situation in the pre-COVID-19 era is the SARS outbreak of far east Asia in 2002. The announcement of international data of locations affected by epidemics suddenly paused tourism mobility to these destinations. The high epidemic rate of COVID-19, its impact on the shrinkage in the world economy and changes in the daily routines of people show that it is not only a problem that concerns public health, but also a major concern which coerces people (and countries) all over the world to rethink in the name of sustainability of contemporary lifestyles and to work on systemic changes.