Toward Innovative, Liveable, and Prosperous Asian Megacities: Medical Tourism

• Main Authors: Conchada, Mitzie Irene P., Castillo, Paulynne
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2010
• Subjects: Medical Tourism; Tourism; City Innovation; Philippines; Recreation, Parks and Tourism Administration
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/res_aki/79; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=res_aki
• Institution: De La Salle University

Thanks to rapidly improving technology and medical practice standards, medical travel is able to combine the allure of exotic tourist destinations with the promise of affordable and high-quality health care as well as alternatives to western medical knowledge and procedures (such as traditional medicine including yoga, homeopathy, and "Chinese medicine"). Rising medical costs and lengthening queues for medical procedures in the Western world also contribute to making medical services in countries like India, the Philippines and Thailand more than acceptable substitutes to those offered in their developed country counterparts. Moreover, the literature on the industry indicate that other than the significant price differences of medical services, factors like “favorable foreign currency exchange rates [in developing economies], rapidly improving technology and medical practice standards” (Garcia & Besinga, 2006) together with the “tourism” element seemingly compensate for the lack of insurance portability in developing countries. Accordingly, medical travel is among the fastest growing sectors, particularly in Asian economies, expanding at an estimated rate of 20 percent annually and should be worth about US$4 billion by 2012 (Yap, Chen & Nones, n.d.). Accordingly, medical tourism is becoming a significant source of growth for Asian economies such as India, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. This paper discusses the evolution of the medical travel industry and highlights the impact of the sector on the domestic economy (Part I). It tackles the various theories involved in the development of medical tourism infrastructure (Part II). The document also identifies the sector’s strengths, obstacles, and prospects (Part III). The last section, Part IV, summarizes the paper by analyzing the health tourism sector as a city innovation.