'India' a Hub for Medical Tourism
ABSTRACT
Medical tourism has become a popular option for tourists across the world. It takes into account primarily the biomedical procedures, combined with travel and tourism. Medical tourism has been coined by different travel agencies and the mass media to describe the rapidly growing practice of travelling across international borders to obtain cutting edge medical care. Countries like India, Malaysia, and Thailand are promoting medical tourism aggressively. The key competitive advantages of India in medical tourism stem from the following:
Low cost advantage.
Strong reputation in the Advanced Healthcare Segment (Cardiovascular Surgery, Organ Transplants, Eye Surgery etc.)
The diversity of tourist destinations available in the country.
The key concerns facing the industry include:
Less Government Initiatives.
Lack of a coordinated effort to promote the industry.
No accreditation mechanism for hospitals and the lack of uniform pricing policies and standards across hospitals.
Medical tourism or health care tourism is fast growing multibillion-dollar industry around the world. It is an economic activity that entails trade in services and represents the mixing of two of the largest world industries: Medicine and Tourism. The paper identifies the strengths of India’s medical tourism service providers and points at a number of problems that may reduce the growth opportunity of this industry. This paper focuses on the key issues and opportunities possessed by Indian medical tourism sector that enables it to overcome domestic and international barriers on upgrading its medical services. Finally, this paper analyses and concludes the main reasons why the developing country like India attracts foreign tourists for the medical treatment.
Keywords: Medicine, Tourism, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, Ayurvedic, Naturopathy.
INTRODUCTION
India has a bountiful of diverse tourism hotspots which enchant the recuperating visitors, their scenic beauty,
Medical tourism has become a popular option for tourists across the world. It takes into account primarily the biomedical procedures, combined with travel and tourism. Medical tourism has been coined by different travel agencies and the mass media to describe the rapidly growing practice of travelling across international borders to obtain cutting edge medical care. Countries like India, Malaysia, and Thailand are promoting medical tourism aggressively. The key competitive advantages of India in medical tourism stem from the following:
Low cost advantage.
Strong reputation in the Advanced Healthcare Segment (Cardiovascular Surgery, Organ Transplants, Eye Surgery etc.)
The diversity of tourist destinations available in the country.
The key concerns facing the industry include:
Less Government Initiatives.
Lack of a coordinated effort to promote the industry.
No accreditation mechanism for hospitals and the lack of uniform pricing policies and standards across hospitals.
Medical tourism or health care tourism is fast growing multibillion-dollar industry around the world. It is an economic activity that entails trade in services and represents the mixing of two of the largest world industries: Medicine and Tourism. The paper identifies the strengths of India’s medical tourism service providers and points at a number of problems that may reduce the growth opportunity of this industry. This paper focuses on the key issues and opportunities possessed by Indian medical tourism sector that enables it to overcome domestic and international barriers on upgrading its medical services. Finally, this paper analyses and concludes the main reasons why the developing country like India attracts foreign tourists for the medical treatment.
Keywords: Medicine, Tourism, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, Ayurvedic, Naturopathy.
INTRODUCTION
India has a bountiful of diverse tourism hotspots which enchant the recuperating visitors, their scenic beauty,
References: Dr. Suman Kumar Dawn & Swati Pal, International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Dr. R Gopal, The key issues and challenges in medical tourism sector in India (A Hospital perspective) Jyotsana Mal, Globalisation of Healthcare: Case studies of Medical Tourism in Multi-Specialty Hospitals in India Journals on HealthCare and Medical tourism