Government Policy Initiatives for Developing Sustainable Medical Tourism Industry

Medical tourism is a conscious decision to travel abroad for seeking affordable quality of medical treatment and surgery, with no waiting period. India and Singapore are not only popular destinations for tourism but also for medical tourism in Asia and the world. Australia is also an emerging destination for niche areas of specialised medical treatments. Key aim of this paper is to critically examine the government policy initiatives in India, Singapore and Australia, to support the sustainable development and growth of medical tourism as an export of healthcare medical services to the world. The introductory section of the paper provides a background to the medical tourism industry. Section two puts forward a brief literature review on medical tourism and identifies and develops a list of nine (9) different types/categories of wellness and medical tourist. Section three highlights and critically examines the government policy initiatives to support the sustainable development and growth of medical tourism industry in the three countries. Section four provides discussion and policy implications and lessons for India and Australia. Conclusion section includes recommendation and future research directions

The Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Religious Tourism to the Kartarpur Corridor

The aim of this paper is to analyse the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious tourism in the Kartarpur Gurdwara Corridor between the Punjab States of Pakistan and India. The corridor was opened as a peace building initiative 72 years after the partition of India-Pakistan. In November 2019, thousands of Sikh pilgrims visited Kartarpur and Nankana Sahib in Punjab to celebrate the 550th birth anniversary of the founder of the Sikh religion Guru Nanakji, where he spent last 19 years of his life. The Government of Pakistan invested heavily to build the infrastructure facilities for connecting both borders for religious tourism. The two phases of development of Kartarpur created economic opportunities for the growth of bilateral trade, religious tourism, diplomacy, and peaceful relationships. However, the COVID-19 based travel lockdown caused devastating economic impacts on the Kartarpur religious tourism site and related businesses just four months after its opening. This paper highlights the importance of Kartarpur religious tourism and the devastating economic impact from COVID-19 on the niche spiritual tourism-based economy, employment, marketing, and peace associated with Kartarpur. Qualitative content analysis was adopted using quotes from internet sources to reach findings. Some opportunities are highlighted for a better understanding of global health issues, unified efforts to fight the pandemic and mutual support for spiritual tourism development among Indians and Pakistanis. Policy implications suggest that post-COVID-19, public-private partnership is needed to cooperatively plan, develop, and promote religious tourism, build awareness, and cooperate for common resource management for economic benefits. COVID-19 could be a cooperative stimulus for peaceful change through bilateral trade, travel, and tourism plans, based on responsible cross-border tourism for India and Pakistan; to create a mutually beneficial South-Asian economic success story

The Rise of Spiritual Tourism in South Asia as Business Internationalization

Globalization and digitization are motivating organizations around the world to manage and internationalize their products and services. Adaptively, most Asian companies are internationalizing their businesses with respect to various industries; one obvious example is the tourism industry. The global tourism industry can be segmented into niche types such as heritage tourism, dark tourism, medical tourism, including spiritual tourism. The objective of this paper is to analyze the rise of spiritual tourism in South Asian countries and discusses its operations that are internationalized rather than being region-centric or locally focused. It is argued that that public and private tourism operators in South Asia have realized that spiritual tourism presents an attractive product to invest and market based on people, places, and events. However, the challenge is to internationalize multi-faith spiritual tourism in the context of people, places, and events that would be the only way to develop and sustain this niche segment of the tourism business. It is argued that there are various factors that could enable South Asian countries to effectively internationalize their spiritual tourism destinations. The paper concludes that business internationalization of South Asian spiritual tourism, will not only achieve economic development objectives, but also social and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and bi-lateral diplomatic goals for regional peace and prosperit

Medical tourism: a conceptual framework for an innovation in global healthcare provision

The purpose of this chapter is to establish a conceptual model that can potentially fill research gaps in the literature about medical tourism as an innovative concept in global healthcare provision by developing emerging economies as they are providing low cost alternatives in medical treatment at internationally accredited medical facilities to treat patients from developed countries. Major databases such as Ebscohost and Emerald have been used to search relevant literature. The literature on medical tourism is reviewed so as to understand the key drivers of medical tourism as well as research gaps in the existing literature. Three major drivers of medical tourism have been identified, namely cost, waiting time, and perceived quality. Further empirical research is needed to test the conceptual model in order to better understand what drives a decision to engage in medical tourism. This chapter makes three major contributions; firstly, the identification of the medical tourism literature from the service marketing and management perspectives; secondly, to propose a conceptual model representing innovation in medical tourism for global healthcare by developing emerging economies; thirdly, the identification of research gaps in the medical tourism literature through which future research can further the knowledge of why people travel to developing countries for medical treatment

Globalization, medical travel and healthcare management in Bangladesh

There is an increasing evidence of people from Bangladesh travelling to neighboring countries of Asia, such as India, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore for medical treatment due to poor quality of healthcare services, high cost, and non-availability of speciality medical treatment and facilities. Medical travel is a practise where patients travel to other countries for diagnostic, pathological and complex invasive surgeries due to various push factors in their home country which prevents them for getting affordable, accessible and accredited quality of medical treatment in a timely manner, due to high cost of surgery, uninsured, long waiting period, non-availability of treatment, lack of medical facilities and proper care, lack of trained doctors and nurses, ethical and regulatory reasons, corruption and inadequate public or private medical facilities. This study is based on qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine why people are travelling from Bangladesh to India for medical treatment. Quantitative data were randomly collected from six divisional cities of Bangladesh: Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshai, Barisal and Khulna and two districts Comilla and Bogra. A total of 1282 participants, out of 1450 returned the questionnaires. Data were analyzed using regression analysis. The results concluded that the pull factors that motivated Bangladeshis to travel to India for medical treatment were: low cost of surgery, qualified experienced doctors, quality of nursing care, non-availability of treatment in Bangladesh, and state of the art medical facilities and treatment in India, which concurs with the literatur

Role of financial intermediaries in creating international financial shock with special reference to Bangladesh: a critical review

Bangladesh economy has been facing the impact of International financial distress as it is an integral part of the global community. International financial crisis and international downturn started in USA during 2007-2008, followed by the European financial crisis in 2011 and 2012 and the Arab-Spring of 2011-12, which also has impacted on the domestic economy of Bangladesh. Financial intermediaries played an important role in the process of creating distress. This study has been undertaken to evaluate impact of international shock and convergence on Bangladesh economy. The time period of the study is from January 2012 to August 2012. The study uses both primary sources and secondary sources of data. The paper suggests that the development of this poor country Bangladesh depends upon employment creation and reduction of prices of essential basic commodities. Given that the market structure of the country is based on asymmetric information, international cooperation is an important elements where real, monetary, and the external sector should work together to complement each other for strengthening the macroeconomic fundamental variables in order to achieve the development aspirations. Bangladesh should tread with caution in dealing with the current international financial distress in order to minimize its potential unfavourable crash of international financial shock on the Bangladesh economy

Growth of medical tourism in India and public-private partnerships

Medical tourism in India is a billion dollar and fastest growing healthcare industry. Medical tourism involves traveling across the border nationally or internationally for urgent or elective medical surgeries and other specialised treatments. This is a modern 'cost effective' term coined by healthcare and tourism industries across the globe, although the phenomenon is not new. People have been for centuries traveling within India, for medical healing to the ancient shrines and temples. Pilgrims and patients across the Mediterranean also travelled to ancient Greece to stay in the shrine of the healing god, Asklepios. Today a growing number of patients as tourist from developed countries such as UK, USA, Australia, Canada, and Europe are travelling abroad to developing countries like India, Malaysia, Thailand, and China with the main objective of obtaining immediate health care, plastic surgery, organ replacement, reproductive –IVF procedures including elective surgery and long-term care is gaining greater appeal in the globalised world with fewer barriers to travel. This trend is spreading fast due to the very high cost of elective medical procedures, lack or shortage of organ donors and above all long waiting lists in developed countries. India is the preferred choice in terms of, low cost, no waiting period, climate, English language, exotic destinations, and international and government accreditation.A developing country like India is emerging as a world class medical tourist market in the world, emphasized by world class technology-intensive medical equipment, highly qualified and experienced expertise of medical professionals, the cost-effectiveness of the medical procedures– and above all low cost medical-tourist package for foreigners along with recovery and rest in a five star medical-tourism resort for the patients and accompanying family members. Moreover, it can be argued that public and private sector partnerships is essential between the various key stake holders for providing accredited, efficient, effective, equitable and good quality of health care for the long term sustainability of the medical tourism industry for the host country, given the increasing competition to maximise their participation in the global economy, as well as to guarantee quality of service, infrastructure needs, reasonable price, accreditation and handling of any legal disputes.Like many countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, India also promotes medical tourism through government support and National Health Policy (NHP) reform of 2002 drafted by Prime Minister’s advisory council on Trade and Industry, which treats this industry legally as an ‘export sector’ eligible for all fiscal incentives extended to export earnings. This conceptual paper examines the growth of medical tourism in India and public and private partnerships. Part one introduces the importance of medical tourism and its growth in India. Part two reviews the literature and examines its significance as a major source of export revenue. Part three considers how the adoption of PPP/PFI policy will promote the sustainable growth of medical tourism industry in India and make it globally competitive health care destination. Finally, part four provides some concluding comments

Factors determining medical travel decision: an empirical study of India

This study answered what demand and the supply factors determine patient/medical tourist’s decision to travel overseas for medical treatment to India. The findings policy implication concludes that, patients search for information about surgeon’s expertise, hospital accreditation-quality, surgery waiting-time, state-of-the-art hospital-facilities, cost-savings, patient-safety, hospital-precision, and tourism for a positive healthcare outcome

Domestic medical tourism in Australia

Domestic medical tourism has been in Australia for at least the past century, when patients travelled from very remote and regional areas to capital cities across the continent. Domestic tourists are interested in medical treatment or complex surgeries, such as diagnostic tests, orthopaedic and cardiac care, radiotherapy, spinal surgery, reproductive or cancer treatment, neurosurgery, among others, to improve their health and quality of life. Inequities to access and shortages of medical facilities, specialized doctors and surgeons in remote and regional parts of Australia have spurred low- and middle income patients to travel to capital cities for care. http://www.medicaltourismmag.com/domestic-medical-tourism-in-australia

The linkage between environmental degradation, high population growth and poverty in India

"This paper examines some aspects of the interrelationships between poverty, population growth and environmental degradation with reference to the Indian experience since independence..."--p. ii