Definition:

Medical tourism means that tourists can choose a suitable tourist area according to their own illness and doctors' advice, enjoy the health butler service while traveling, carry out effective health management, and achieve the goal of physical and mental health. The World Tourism Organization defines medical tourism as a tourism service with the theme of medical care, disease and health, rehabilitation and self-cultivation.

Thailand is the most developed country in medical tourism in the world. In addition, India, Indonesia, Costa Rica and other countries are vigorously developing the medical tourism industry. Chinese mainland, Hongkong and Taiwan Province Province are also vigorously developing this new product, but the labor cost in these two regions is higher than that in the above-mentioned Southeast Asian countries, so it is difficult to compete with India and Thailand in terms of cost. In 2007, the annual income of medical tourism in India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore totaled $3.4 billion, and about 2.9 million foreigners went to these five countries for sightseeing and treatment.

Second, the development momentum of medical tourism

Medical tourism is a form of tourism that combines tourism and health services. Medical Tourism The number of global medical tourists has risen to more than millions every year. In 2000, the total output value of the world medical tourism industry was less than10 billion US dollars, and it reached 20 billion US dollars in 2005, with an amazing development momentum. Medical tourism has become the fastest growing emerging industry in the world.

Third, the characteristics of each country.

India's three magic weapons

The first is the world-class medical level. Although most public hospitals in India are in poor condition, with an average of less than one bed per 1000 people, emerging private hospitals stand out from the rest. The tall trees in Escot Hospital. Not far away, Apollo Hospital looks like a palace from a distance, with all kinds of advanced medical equipment in the ward. Terry Han said that the conditions of most private hospitals in India are not worse than those in big cities in Europe and America, and even exceed them. In addition, ensuring the quality of medical care is the key to attracting people. In Escot, 4,200 cases of heart surgery were performed, with a mortality rate of only 0.8% and an infection rate of only 0.3%. In developed countries, the average mortality of the same operation reached 65438 0.2%, and the infection rate was 65438 0%.

Second is the very low medical price. Anna Moker, president of Apollo Hospital who has worked hard in the medical field in the United States for more than 20 years, said that a magnetic resonance imaging scan costs $700 in the United States and only $60 in India. According to a report of the Federation of Indian Industries, the charges in India are generally110 in Europe and America. After undergoing heart bypass surgery in a private hospital in Bangalore, Mr. Mascher from England said happily: "This operation needs 6.5438+0.9 million pounds in the UK, and it has to wait in line for half a year. It's only 4,800 pounds here, including round-trip air tickets. "

Third, English-speaking medical staff. Most medical staff in India can speak English, which is convenient for patients from all over the world to communicate with them.

Korean plastic surgery is sought after.

Advantages: Established a cosmetic support center.

Suitable projects: cosmetic surgery, stem cell therapy.

Most foreign patients go to Korea to seek medical services, mainly dental care, plastic surgery and physical examination. It is also reported that with more and more women from Japan, China and other Asian countries coming to South Korea for cosmetic surgery, Seoul, the capital of South Korea, began to contact Seoul Cosmetic Surgery Hospital for "foreign cosmetic tourists". Among local autonomous organizations, Seoul will take the lead in setting up a cosmetic support center to actively attract medical tourists. The Korea Medical Tourism Association said: Seoul's attempt to focus medical tourism on plastic surgery will achieve better results than the medical tourism being promoted by the Korean government. Relevant persons also said: After the Beijing Olympic Games, China people's demand for medical tourism will surge.

Malaysia's medical examination fee is low.

Advantages: the medical expenses are very low.

Appropriate items: health examination

In order to attract more tourists, the Malaysian government began to actively promote "medical tourism", that is, to combine medical or health examination with tourism. The government has designated 44 private hospitals with more than 7,000 beds to participate in the program. This is another measure after Malaysia successfully launched "eco-tourism" and "agricultural tourism". The slogan of "medical tourism" is: "When you relax, it is the best time to have a health check-up". During leisure, shopping or even playing golf, visitors can go to the medical center connected to the hotel for chest X-ray examination, blood pressure test, liver scan and other health checks. It usually takes about 5 hours to get a complete inspection report. If further treatment or surgery is needed, you can transfer to a medical center for further treatment. The biggest advantage of promoting "medical tourism" in Malaysia is that the medical expenses are very low. According to a report in a London newspaper, the cost of providing health check-ups for tourists is only 65,438+0.5 of the cost of similar check-ups in Britain.

Singapore has the best medical system in Asia.

Advantages: Accurate medical service is listed as the best country in Asia by the World Health Organization.

Suitable items: weight loss surgery, health examination.

Singapore, which is listed by the World Health Organization as the country with the best medical system in Asia, has become the favorite of wealthy businessmen from neighboring countries to see a doctor in recent years. Many wealthy Indonesian businessmen even go to Singapore for a week every year for health check-up, which has evolved into a form of medical leave. Singapore is also actively developing medical tourism. In 2005, 400,000 overseas patients came to Singapore for a series of medical treatments, including X-ray examination, eye, heart, brain and cancer surgery, which brought in about HK$ 3.88 billion.

However, medical tourism in Singapore is facing challenges from Malaysia and other countries. In order to open up the market, the country will target the wealthy people in China and India. Many departments in Singapore will promote local medical tourism business in Shanghai, thus attracting 6,543,800 foreign patients to Singapore for medical treatment every year before 2065.438+02.

Hungarian professional dentist

Advantages: there are medical travel agencies and professional high-level dentists.

Suitable projects: "Restoration of Residual Teeth" and "Implantation of New Teeth"

Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Although mineral resources are scarce, it has beautiful natural scenery, distinctive architectural features, hot springs everywhere and distinct climate. In recent years, Hungary has attracted many French tourists, one of which is the "absolutely attractive and competitive" dental expenses in Hungary. Although the French enjoy one of the most favorable medical insurance systems in the world, in recent three or four years, due to the increase of medical expenses, the French themselves have to bear an increasing share of medical care and the waiting period is longer. Therefore, many French people choose to take advantage of their holidays and go to Budapest to have their teeth treated.

As many French people use their holidays to "repair their residual teeth" and "plant new teeth" in Budapest, many travel companies have emerged. They are not only responsible for booking air tickets and hotels, but also introducing corresponding doctors to French tourists according to their needs and providing translators to facilitate their daily life and medical treatment in Budapest.

Israel is the capital of IVF in the world.

In order to advocate fertility, Israel is the only country in the world that provides high subsidies for IVF surgery, even free of charge in public hospitals.

Israel's IVF surgery is world-famous, because in this prolific society, in order to improve the fertility rate of the people, high subsidies are provided to women undergoing IVF surgery. This kind of operation is expensive in other countries, but in Israel, most of it is paid by the government.

There used to be a saying in South Korea: "Every cosmetic hospital in South Korea represents the highest level of cosmetic medicine in the world, and almost every Korean has a micro-face!" South Korea's cosmetic culture is extremely prosperous, and the trend of cosmetic culture directly drives the vigorous development of cosmetic medicine industry.

Koreans' attitude and tolerance for cosmetic surgery far exceed those of other countries, and even some Korean systems and policies advocate citizens to actively participate in cosmetic surgery; Therefore, there are many cosmetic hospitals in almost every city in Korea, and the charges of these cosmetic hospitals are also very close to the people. Therefore, cosmetic surgery is deeply loved by the Korean people.

If you think that cosmetic surgery in South Korea means cutting on your face or body, you are wrong! The popular medical beauty in Korea is not only medical surgery, but also their concepts of facial beauty and image design and development are very extensive. Skin care, weight loss, slimming, surgery, maintenance, etc., as long as they can improve their appearance, can be listed as cosmetic industry projects in Korea.

Moreover, Koreans' investment in the cosmetic industry has always been regarded as an indispensable investment in life. Many teenagers have undergone medical cosmetic surgery during their school years, and most college students will go to cosmetic surgery hospitals for facial adjustment after graduation, which is also the real reason why the cosmetic surgery industry in Korea can last for a long time.

South Korea's cosmetic industry has promoted the development of star-making culture.

Moreover, the charging prices of plastic surgery hospitals and beauty salons in South Korea are rare in the world, and the whole industry also adheres to the concept of the same operation and the same price.

The vigorous development of Korean plastic surgery culture also directly promoted the development of star-making culture. Many people don't know how the Korean wave culture was formed. Simply put, Korean star culture is actually a Korean wave culture created by mastering Koreans' love for beautiful things and their subjective feelings about ideology and cultural forms.

In fact, from an international perspective, it is actually their helplessness for South Korea to take this road. After all, the whole country is too small to develop a diversified and comprehensive economy. Therefore, if the Korean economy wants to develop continuously, it must choose the right field and the right direction. Why did South Korea think of developing entertainment star-making culture?

The main reason is the influence of next-door neighbor Japan. As we know, Japan is also a world-famous entertainment country, and they began to develop the entertainment industry very early. However, after the Japanese entertainment culture spread to East Asia and even the world, the Korean government keenly smelled the development business opportunity: entertainment. Therefore, under the advocacy of the government, the development direction of South Korea began to shift from traditional industries to entertainment.

When the cosmetic culture and the star-making culture became the double carriages of South Korea's external publicity, South Korea naturally developed its own tourism industry. After all, tourism is an important industry for a country's economic health and sustainable development.

Because the plastic surgery industry is famous, Korean businessmen have opened various beauty shops, plastic surgery halls, skin care products shops and beauty shops in major tourist cities, and even some plastic surgery hospitals in South Korea have bowed directly: the world's safest medical beauty has world-famous plastic surgery technology.

So relying on this stunt, it attracted a large number of tourists to come here for plastic surgery in the form of sightseeing in South Korea. Nearly 40% of tourists in Korea come to the plastic surgery culture every year. To this end, South Korea's cosmetic culture can be said to be a continuous blood transfusion to South Korea's tourism industry.

South Korea's entertainment industry is rapidly exported to all countries in the world with its ever-changing talent resources and entertainment works. Therefore, Korean artists have become a business card for Korean propaganda in disguise, and this business card has also evolved into a world idolization trend, which has led many male and female tourists from other countries to go to South Korea in succession, thus driving tourism.

Therefore, looking at the development of Korean tourism, strictly speaking, South Korea's tourism industry is enduring by the continuous transfusion of plastic surgery culture and star-making culture; This is also one of the main reasons why the Korean economy can take off. South Korea not only has the "miracle of Hanjiang River", but also the "star-making culture" driven by plastic surgery technology, which has become a business card of South Korea, thus driving the development of tourism in South Korea.

South Korea's unique economic model also provides lessons for small and medium-sized countries in the world. South Korea is one of the few small and medium-sized countries in the world that has stepped out of its own unique development model, and also knows how to rely on its advantages to develop its disadvantages. The reason why several major chaebol enterprises in South Korea are so huge and brilliant is that they know how to rely on advantageous industries to drive weak industries. South Korea is such a place, relying on superior economies to drive weak economies.

The process of living abroad for the purpose of medical treatment and nursing is called medical tourism. Medical tourists can accept different treatment methods, such as cancer treatment, cardiovascular treatment, nervous system treatment, fertility treatment and so on. With the rapid improvement of people's economic living standards in China, tourism has ushered in a diversified and vertical development. As a combination of medical industry and tourism industry, medical tourism is becoming a brand-new hot spot of medical investment.

Where are the investment opportunities for medical tourism?

From the perspective of investment, medical tourism, as a new tourism product, has a very positive investment prospect, and its main investment direction can be concentrated in the following three aspects:

1, overseas medical travel service. Compared with traditional tourism, with the improvement of China people's knowledge level, many people have been able to go abroad freely by virtue of their English level. For medical tourism, a highly professional tourism project, the foreign language level of ordinary people, including local medical ability, is insufficient, which highlights the importance of professional technology, so the travel agency project specially set up for medical tourism will usher in a new dawn, which is different from the highly competitive pattern of traditional travel agencies in the Red Sea. Let travel agencies have stronger bargaining power, so as to ensure a higher profit level in the industry, while the price of medical tourism varies greatly from place to place, which also provides a broad space for travel agency services of medical tourism. Investing in travel agencies will be an important starting point for entering the medical tourism market.

2. Investment in treatment service institutions. The demand for transnational medical care is often concentrated in the field of diagnosis and treatment planning. Due to the gap between domestic and international medical level, 10% people abroad deny or question the domestic diagnosis scheme, and 62% people adjust the treatment scheme. According to different diseases, 62% patients with lung cancer, 58% patients with colon cancer, 56% patients with nervous system diseases and 73% patients with melanoma adjusted their treatment plans after going abroad. Therefore, medical tourism often makes diagnosis and treatment plans in countries with advanced medical level, and many patients with follow-up basic services will choose to solve them in China, which provides a broad space for investing in peripheral services of medical tourism. With the continuous maturity of the industry, peripheral services will become an important field of medical tourism investment.

3. Investment in the mode of combining medical care with nursing care. In addition to the traditional therapeutic medical tourism, more and more elderly people in China have accepted the old-age care model combining treatment and prevention with medical care in Europe and America. More and more elderly people are getting used to the migratory bird pension. The improvement of the medical needs of the new generation of elderly people provides a broad space for the medical tourism for the aged, which integrates leisure, tourism, vacation and pension.

4. Current situation of domestic medical tourism.

Wang Xingbin, a senior tourism expert, believes that at present, domestic medical tourism is in its infancy. From a national perspective, on the one hand, China is gradually entering a well-off society in an all-round way, and on the other hand, the demand for medical tourism among the wealthy and middle classes in China is becoming increasingly obvious, amounting to about 300 million people. They have special requirements for their own medical care, sub-health, beauty, leisure and entertainment, and meeting these needs is a huge market.

From the government level, medical care is a good way to revitalize domestic demand; From the point of view of market and enterprises, tourism is developing from sightseeing to various high-end tourism, high-quality tourism and characteristic tourism, and medical tourism has entered a stage of being widely valued by tourism; From the perspective of medical and entertainment institutions, they are now faced with two tasks. On the one hand, they are the basic tasks of hospitals, not for profit. On the other hand, it is a promising medical tourism to meet the special medical and health needs of some people.

Recently, Hainan Province put forward in the newly released Implementation Plan of Health Medical Tourism in Hainan Province that the province will build a "one heart and five districts" medical tourism system around four key areas: medical care, medical beauty, rehabilitation and health preservation. It is planned to build Hainan into a world-class health medical tourism destination and a major source of medical tourism in the world in about ten years, with a total income of 40 billion yuan.

According to industry insiders, Hainan, as a high-quality coastal city in China, has inherent advantages and foundation for developing medical tourism. In order to further open the market, it is necessary to further strengthen local medical resources.

In fact, Hainan has long had a layout in medical tourism. On February 28th, 20 13, the State Council officially approved the establishment of Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pioneer Zone (hereinafter referred to as "Pioneer Zone") in Hainan, which was interpreted by the industry as a "experimental field" for medical tourism in Hainan.

Wang Xingbin, a senior expert in the tourism industry, pointed out that under the background of policy support and continuous improvement of the tourism market, Hainan's efforts to develop the medical tourism market are in the right direction. High-quality natural ecological environment and stable climate are the main advantages of developing medical and healthy tourism in Hainan.

However, medical tourism is a high-end special tourism project, which requires high medical technology, professionalism and science and technology. If Hainan wants to occupy the highland of medical tourism market continuously, the key lies in whether it can provide medical solutions with special curative effects for a certain disease, introduce more medical technologies and form professional medical and health teams.

The development model of Shanghai medical tourism is worth learning from Hainan Province.

Shanghai was the first city in China to make medical efforts, and then other places followed suit. In the past two years, the development momentum of Hainan Province is the fastest. China International Medical Service Platform was jointly established by six departments in Shanghai, aiming at developing and popularizing medical tourism products in Shanghai.

Development conditions of medical tourism in Hainan

First, Hainan is extremely rich in land resources, with low population density, large development space and great potential.

Second, Hainan has a first-class living environment.

Third, Hainan's tropical island landscape is the best in the world.

Fourth, Hainan is rich in tropical biological resources.

Fifth, Hainan's unique geographical and climatic environment is conducive to preventing the prevalence of respiratory infectious diseases. Going to Haikou and Sanya for cat holidays in winter has become a craze for the elderly in the mainland. Most of the northern elderly who come to Hainan for the winter are 60-80 years old. They are healthy and have certain economic strength. Many of them are used to coming to Hainan for the winter, and the tropical climate in Hainan can also make the common diseases of the elderly, such as asthma, rhinitis and other respiratory diseases and joint diseases, recover well.

improvement measures

Jiao Jiege, dean and professor of Hainan Medical College, believes that hospitals should attract some doctors to participate in TCM rehabilitation and health care, and develop this into a medical brand specialty in Hainan and develop medical tourism. According to the characteristics of Hainan and the special needs of building an international tourist island, we should undertake more responsibilities in this regard.

On the one hand, it can increase income and build a good medical brand, on the other hand, it can promote the pace of building Hainan into an international tourist island.

Seven, China development suggestions.

Facing the huge market demand, travel agencies and domestic medical institutions should jointly launch medical tourism packages suitable for China's national conditions, organically integrate existing resources under the management of relevant industry policies, promote and drive the development of related service industries, form a new service industry model, and promote the further development of the economy.

In addition, medical institutions need to pay attention to improving their own supporting services, and they should conform to the habits of international patients in terms of language, insurance, reimbursement and living services. Only in this way can we occupy a favorable market position in the coming medical tourism boom. Just like the humanized service of Zibo Wanjie Cancer Hospital, it has been unanimously recognized by patients all over the world. Patients receiving treatment here are also widely distributed in this area. In addition to patients in Chinese mainland, there are patients from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, Southeast Asian countries such as Pakistan and the Philippines, and patients from European countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands. Medical tourism has started here.