How did India become one of the hubs of medical tourism?/ Iran’s high potential to attract health tourists

According to the social reporter of Moj News Agency, Sanat Tourism Medicine is one of the most profitable branches of tourism in any country, and this importance has been noticed in recent years, especially in the Asian continent. Although all the countries in the region are emerging as health tourism destinations, three countries, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, are considered as leaders of health tourism in the region.

After the economic crisis of the 1990s in East Asia, many countries in the region thought of ways to increase their per capita income, and the three countries mentioned were the first to invest in health tourism. Three decades later, these three countries are frequently listed in the top ten health tourism countries.

Along with these 3 leading countries, India and the United Arab Emirates have also taken important steps to become one of the leaders in medical tourism in the world. reach during the last decade.

Medical tourism is one of the important economic sectors of India and India has seen a lot of private investments in the last five years. In spite of this, the Indian government had also made the issue of health and medicine one of its priorities. The total of these measures made India to rank 10th among the best countries in the world in terms of health tourism.

Indian health tourism has become a very competitive situation. Several reasons such as the ability to adapt and adapt to global demand and the competitiveness of this country, along with cheap medical services, have led to the growth of this industry in this country.

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The main reason for the arrival of medical tourists from developed countries to India is the long wait to receive a visa or medical services in Western countries, the weakness of medical insurance to cover all medical services and the high cost of treatment, while India is not one of the It does not have these problems. Also, low-cost skilled labor, modern medical technologies, appropriate quality of medical services and the use of English language by the masses are the reasons for the success of Indian health tourism.

With the support and investment of the Indian government, the city of “Chennai” has become the health tourism capital of this country. India has 39 internationally accredited hospitals and 150 health tourists are treated daily in Chennai alone.

Since 2019, the Indian government has introduced its new medical visa, which is valid for 6 months, to make this country more of an option for health tourists. English is an official language in India and is widely used by the public, which is a great advantage for Western tourists. Many Indian hospitals also employ various translators to make the stay of their international patients much easier.

Most international hospitals in India have translators fluent in Russian, Arabic, English, as well as people to translate into Balkan and African languages. Indian hospitals have almost no such thing as “waiting time” and “queues” and patients are treated immediately.

As in Southeast Asian countries, treatment costs in India are 65 to 90 percent cheaper than in the United States. Many private hospitals in India sell special treatment packages and provide special accommodation services like ‘personal driver’ and ‘internet’ to their guest patients.

These factors have led to the 200% growth of this industry, attracting 2 million health tourists and India’s annual profit of 9 billion euros from health tourism since 2020, and it is expected that this figure will reach 12 billion dollars per year by the end of 2026.

This is while according to the statistics of the Ministry of Health, we have one million and 200 thousand health tourists arriving every year, but the resulting income is about one billion dollars, which in addition to medical centers and hospitals, the chain of hotels, restaurants, transportation industry and Other service institutions are also awarded.

This statistic has placed our country in the 43rd country in terms of attracting foreign tourism, while Iran’s medical capacity has a much higher potential for this rank. Many experts believe that following the example of India can be a suitable model for the development of this important industry in our country.

In this regard, Setareh Bostan Javadi, a tourism expert, told Moj: The lack of presence of insurance companies and international facilitators in the country for several reasons, including sanctions, the absence of a strong electronic system, and the lack of an efficient rail and air transportation system from border points is one of the obstacles. The main development of health tourism in our country.

He continues: lack of attention and due diligence to produce standard packages to provide health tourists, not paying attention to compiling the international accreditation document for hospitals, not using the capacity of friendship associations of Iran and other countries, lack of manuals and references in health tourism and not holding Exhibitions and conferences introducing Iran’s health tourism capabilities are other obstacles.

This expert stated: the lack of a professional health tourism organization under the supervision of the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization as an executive arm, the lack of sufficient executive operational ability in the Ministry of Health and the Cultural Heritage Organization, the lack of a strategic plan for health tourism in the country, the lack of allocation of facilities in advertising and marketing. Health tourism and the lack of hotels-hospitals and its regulations are problems on the way to the development of health tourism.

Bostan Javadi said in relation to the solutions for the development of this industry: planning for the formation of regional meetings in the field of health tourism and using the infrastructure and medical capabilities of the country to provide services to tourists, removing the ambiguity of obtaining licenses for professional companies in the field of health tourism in order to standardize and promote The quality of services of activists, tourism education in the field of writing resources and compiling educational content for managers of institutions and companies active in health tourism are among the measures that are taken to solve these problems.

He stated that the field is now open for health tourism brokers and emphasized: The best platform to prevent bandwagoning in health tourism is the crediting of service providers, that is, we should support in a way that all activists follow the frameworks for more profit. . The realization of this requires the serious determination of the Ministry of Health and tourism agencies, and this path will automatically close the way for brokers.