Health tourism and its impacts on host nation and hospitality industry

Health tourism and its impacts on host nation and hospitality industry

Growing demand for health services is a global phenomenon, linked to economic development that generates rising incomes and education. Demographic change,

WRITE THIS ESSAY FOR ME

Tell us about your assignment and we will find the best writer for your paper.

Get Help Now!

especially the ageing population and older people’s requirements for more medical services, coupled with rising incidence of chronic conditions, also fuel demand for more and better health services. Waiting times and/or the increasing cost of health services at home, combined with the availability of cheaper alternatives in developing countries, has lead new healthcare consumers, or medical tourists, to seek treatment overseas.

This booming growth for medical/health tourism in recent times has had both positive and negative impacts on the global healthcare and on the host nation. Whether health is a motivator to travel or as a contributor to disease transference it can have a great impact on the hospitality and tourism industry. It can influence social, financial, industrial, environmental, business and hospitality sectors in an economy. It’s impact on global healthcare can lead to innovation in healthcare solution, enhancements in healthcare solutions, enhancements in the number of healthcare professional, increased international standards in healthcare solutions and emergence of supporting healthcare infrastructure for example a medical hotel.

A number of tourists are now combining vacation and health care. According to Travel Health Watch (Oct 18, 2010) medical tourism market shows rapid growth. The 2010 Portrait of American Travellers, a study compiled by Harrison Group and Y partnership, found that half of leisure travellers from theU.S.are familiar with the idea of medical tourism. The study also found that the medical tourism market is growing 20 percent each year and leisure travellers will consider having a medical procedure done in a foreign country if they could save some money, the quality is comparable to services provided in the U.S, and/or if their insurance would not cover a particular procedure in the U.S.

In India, health care is one of the largest sectors, in terms of revenue and employment, and this sector is expanding rapidly largely due to health and medical tourists. During the 1990s, the Indian health care sector grew at a compound annual rate of 16%. Today the total value of the sector is more than US$34 billion. By 2012, India’s health care sector is projected to grow to near US$40 billion (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2007).

Medical hotels are also in the rise due to the demand and rapid increase in health care from tourists. Consortiums inSingaporeare investing in medical hotels which will boast a 260-room luxury high-rise connected to the east wing of a new hospital inFarrerPark. The hotel will feature a 500-seat conference hall, indoor and outdoor gardens and a spa, as well as a dialysis machine and other medical equipment for patients who don’t want to stay in the hospital. It will add new meaning to the concept of a healing holiday.

Jetting off to a foreign country for affordable cosmetic surgery has been a popular option for years. But now, pinched by rising health-care costs in developed countries, travellers are going abroad for routine required surgeries and procedures, including colonoscopies and ob-gyn exams. According toButler,Sana, by 2012, experts predict, medical tourism will turn into a $100 billion international industry with more than 780 million patients seeking health care abroad.

Travelling overseas for medical care has historical roots; previously limited to elites from developing countries to developed ones, when health care was inadequate or unavailable at home. Now however, the direction of medical travel is changing towards developing countries, and globalization and increasing acceptance of health services as a market commodity have lead to a new trend; organized medical tourism for fee paying patients, regardless of citizenship, who shop for health services overseas using new information sources, new agents to connect them to providers, and inexpensive air travel to reach their destination.

Health tourists constantly prefer to consult doctors of high repute, whose skills have already benefited patients with similar medical conditions. The enormous need for proficient personnel breeds more specialists who cater to this escalating requirement thus contributing to the economy’s employment. Apart from the physician’s status, a potential foreign medical tourist looks at numerous other aspects of the medical establishment, to which he/she entrusts their wellbeing. As per industry standards, accreditations from authorized bodies are recognized and accepted. Other variations which monitor quality and accountability standards are also improved upon and utilized. National accreditations, which have their own stringent parameters, are also improving upon international standards to meet international patient requirements and expectations.

Dispensation, storage & interpretation of available medical records and data files; a process termed ‘Knowledge Processing’ has made the medical system transparent beyond medical authorities worldwide, to respective patients as well. Prior to the global focus on health tourism, the importance of this process was not felt as keenly as it is today. With the advent of the internet and web conferencing, medical proceedings, subject data and case histories of patients around the world is now available and shared online with doctors operating in any country. It provides them with excellent opportunities to interpret, assimilate, improve, collaborate and enhance the overall health services afforded.

Globalization of medicine has brought the emanation of several other allied international sectors like healthcare insurance, vast selection of tourism getaways, varied choices of travelling and unlimited options for hospitable lodging in the country that one chooses to get treated in. Besides, the banking sector has facilitated advancing of loans, comfortable payback schemes, credit card facilities; easy access to internet payment gateways, abundant foreign currency exchange centres and other painless international banking procedure to help foreign tourists. Such progr…………………………………………………………….