What ıs health tourısm?
A person not having any diseases and injuries doesn’t explain the term Health. Health is a person being in a good state physically, mentally and socially as a whole. Tourism is trips that are made to another cities or countries for business, health or travel, also to see or explore. In addition, the term tourism stands for economic, cultural and technical precautions that are taken to accommodate local or foreign travelers visiting a region or a country and all practices accordingly. Touristic trips are not only people traveling to a place from another, but also people being in touch culturally, economically and socially. Formed from these to universal notions, Health Tourism is people traveling to various countries in the world to get various health services. We mostly live according to our priorities. For example, when we experience a health problem or need medical support, we don’t think of our hobbies, our desires to see new places or the trips we want to make.
Because ‘Health comes first.’, as it does all around the world. Most of the time, exploring new places and vacations are things that we can postpone, and we can experience these only if our health, social life and financial conditions let us. However, in the last few years, there is an inspiring development in countries which are improved in certain fields of health services. While advanced technologies of communication and transportation prove every one of us that the world is not made up of only our place of birth, where we live and make a living, it also offers a chance to experience this. A rising number of health services and their variability in cities developing more rapid than the country they are in, which provide touristic and multilayered services, brought many guests to our country.
Health tourısm today
Various factors affect the development of Health Tourism and its services. There is a supply-demand balance as a result of improving and changing world standards. There are several reasons that persuade people to get health services in other countries.
We can summarize these reasons as;
Rapid developments in information and communication technology,
The globalization process that is still taking place in the world,
Long waiting periods of getting treatment and throughout procedures,
Economical and systematical problems in countries’ healthcare systems,
Consumers becoming conscious about the services they get,
New market searches of industries and new economical fields formed by pluralist approaches,
Health services being expensive in developed countries and the opportunity to get the same service in another country inexpensively,
The patient’s ability to get higher quality health services in another country,
Problems that take place related to one’s health insurance,
Patients’ search for new treatments for chronical or temporary diseases and the desire of the elderly and people with disabilities to be treated in a different environment,
Today, health and wellness services are provided in our country to the people who are tourists and our patients at he same time. People can get the sterilized, proper and personalized health services that they need and in this journey which they begin with reasonable and high expectations by merging travel and health. Besides that, patients have the chance of getting to know our country’s natural and still developing beatuies. With the feature, Health Tourism is climbing the ladder among the industries that provide people with the opportunity of returning to their countries wtih guaranteed happiness after a visit with bright, healthy and relaxing feelings.
health tourısm ın turkey
‘’Health Tourism in the world has developed rapidly in the last 10 years. The number of people who travel for medical reasons has exceeded 10 million and reached an annual return of 100 billion USD. Thermal tourism, medical SPA, number of elderly and people with disability and the annual return of this field is not exactly known and it’s foreseen that it’s in a much more higher ranking than medical tourism.’’
Diversifying the tourism industry and spreading it to 12 months is an obligation in touristic countries such as Turkey. Tourism industry is a very important sector with the aspects of creating labor and spreading to 12 months. As for health tourism, it’s a commercial issue and has a very important part in economies of countries.
Top 5 countries in terms of the number of patients visiting are; the USA, Germany, Thailand, India and Turkey.
In our country, there are 48 JCI-accredited medical enterprises which serve in international standards.
In Turkey, besides private hospitals, university and public hospitals also started various projects to empower the infrastructure of Health Tourism.
It is planned to form units within the Department of Health Tourism in fields below, in which Turkey has its place as a rising market;
Medical Tourism,
Thermal Tourism, SPA-Wellness,
Tourism for the elderly and people with disability.
(Source: Official Website of Ministry of Health of Turkey)