Wellness and medical tourism
What exactly does medical tourism really mean? It says something for the state of the sector that this very simple question took up so much time at the IMTJ Summit in London this week.
The first problem that arises is the abundance of interchangeable terminology that exists: medical tourism, medical travel, health tourism, cross-border healthcare, international patient flow – the list goes on.
The second, is what medical tourism really is. There are the big surgeries, cosmetic work and dental treatments that are clearly defined as being in the realm of medical tourism, but where does wellness fit into this? If travel for medical purposes and travel for wellbeing are lumped in together, this radically changes the playing field.
Lászlo Puczkó, managing director at Hungarian management consultancy Xellum says medical treatments are not always the be-all and end-all in health travel: “wellbeing is important, especially in short term travel”. So could using alternative medical treatments (aka, wellness) abroad be covered by the broad church of medical travel? And if so, is this right?
Puczkó says there is a growing market for patients who don’t want to be called patients, as they are travelling for wellness treatments. He says these tourists will pay high prices for holistic treatments, including €500 for walking in the desert with a feather on your palm as a meditation practice. Also cited were forest hammam facilities and spa treatments that give Eastern Europe’s traditional sanatoriums a 5* twist.
Wellness and health go hand in hand, but there is a clear difference between travelling to Hungary for dental surgery and travelling to Austria for a rejuvenating massage and walk in the Alps. If sitting in a thermal hot spring or pool of water relaxing come under the banner of wellness, as Puczkó argues, then the definition of what counts as medical tourism gets a bit absurd.
The introduction of government tourism boards could be behind this – typically they try to boost their international standing by making it good for your health to travel to them.
But that doesn’t mean wellness should be excluded. As the rich west becomes ever more obsessed with health you could argue that this category may grow faster than medical healthcare. One thing is for sure, it will be even harder to define!
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Max Hotopf or call 0207 183 3779.
