Medical Tourism: Areas of Concern, Intricacies, Impacts and Factors

Running head: TOURISM AND TRAVEL
TOURISM AND TRAVEL
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1TOURISM AND TRAVEL
Introduction
With the emergence of globalization and culture of consumerism, people developed the
idea of travelling to implement various forms of substitutes which give rise to high level of
contentment, satisfaction and healthy living (Fetscherin & Stephano, 2016). Medical tourism
occurs when patients travel internationally in order to successfully attain private-aided medical
treatment. Medical tourism is recognized as a global practice affiliated with health care
organizations, hospitals and health clinics in a wide range of destination nations who are
contesting to take care of such international patients (Ormond & Sulianti, 2017). Medical
tourism further known as health tourism is often underlined by prominent and leading health care
organizations operating in developing nations by proficiently providing supreme quality health
care services at economical costs to patients from industrialized countries (Abd Mutalib et al.,
2017). The primary attractions of health or medical tourism focus on cost-effectiveness and a
probability to benefit from tourism services of pertaining to health tourism destinations during
recovery period. The following paper highlights the areas of concern, intricacies, impacts and
factors identified by broad range of scholars engaged in the field of health tourism.
Discussion
Understanding the role of medical tourism
The article “Medical tourism in India – in whose interest?” by Swati Gola has recognized
aspects of health tourism not essentially as a recent phenomenon and had persistently attained
substantial level of prevalence since 20th century. The limited market accessibility of medical
tourism has been perceived more as a ‘novelty’. This elevating level of prominence has resulted

2TOURISM AND TRAVEL
medical tourism to become one of the major facets of globalization. Health tourism is considered
as one of the highly committed and rapidly emerging sectors of tourism business whereby people
travel with a significant aim of enhancing welfare and attaining high quality health care services
outside the jurisdictions of patients’ country. Furthermore, another article emphasizing on value
of travelling with health advantages provide an explicit understanding of the dynamic progress of
health tourism that has been achievable because of the significant divergence in the level of
health care as well as the expenditure of health care services in different nations. This
intensification of medical tourism has fundamentally opened avenues for several patients
towards specific procedures or health care services in their own region or receive similar kinds of
medical services abroad without any impediments and at economical prices. Furthermore, an
influx of health care tourists have been observed especially from the European region and North
America, where an augmented rate of medical technical proficiency and expertise is integrated
with equally soaring expenditures for receiving health care treatment.
However, reports reveal by Veselova, (2017) that medical services provided in UK is free
of charge operating under National Health Service but patients have to encounter considerable
level of delay in receiving effective health care services which often tend to extend till 2 years.
Thus patients exhibit greater degree of inclination in choosing medical services which can be
treated within limited span of time (Hanefeld, Smith & Noree, 2016). Furthermore, certain
medical tourism destinations are have attained prominence for offering provisions to alternative
medication and customary form of heath care services which consequentially led patients seeking
effective medical services opt for alternative medication like Ayurveda. Several health insurance
organizations along with leading corporate agencies operating in developed nations further show