Medical tourism in india: an analysis

Tourism over the years has cropped up to be the world‘s largest and fastest growing industry. It is a major phenomenon of the modern society. Medical tourism is the travel of people to a place other than where they normally reside for the purpose of obtaining medical treatment in that country. Traditionally, people would travel from less-developed countries to major medical centres in highly developed countries for medical treatment that was unavailable in their own communities. The recent trend is for people to travel from developed countries to third-world countries for medical treatments because of cost consideration, though the traditional pattern still continues. Tourism in reality is not an industry but an activity. It is defined as an activity that takes place when people move to some other place for leisure or for business and stay at least for 24 hours. Tourism in India is the largest service industry, with a contribution of 6.23% to the National GDP and 8.78% of the total employment in India. . Health tourism is a wider term for travels that focus on medical treatments and the utilization of healthcare services. It spans a wide field of health-oriented tourism ranging from preventive and health-conductive to rehabilitation and curative forms of travel; the latter being commonly referred to as Medical tourism. India is a leading player in the medical tourist/healthcare Facilitation industry. It is increasingly emerging as the destination of choice for a wide range of medical procedures. This article examines the emerging of medical tourism in India and what challenges it’s faced in the context of globalization. How these could be overcome by enhancing the facilities of medical tourism.