A new definition for medical travel in 2022?

Medical tourism is often described as travelling from one country to another, but often forgotten is travelling for treatment within a country. So where do you draw the line? In the USA, is it across state boundaries? In China is it to Hainan or Hong Kong? In Europe, where EU countries call themselves member states, is it across the EU, or within the country? And if you include tele-consulting and telemedicine, does medical tourism even have to involve travel?  Perhaps, says Ian Youngman, a new definition should be “getting medical treatment or advice from a location that’s not nearby.”

2022 will be better for medical travel compared to 2020-1 as people increasingly accept that Covid will be part of life and destinations firmly establish approaches to safety and testing.

People still need to get treated as medical conditions do not go away and may get worse. Local healthcare in many countries is still struggling, with routine operations cancelled and waiting lists rising.  Local and global travel for medical treatments will inevitably continue, but perhaps not yet in such volumes, and with some significant changes, compared to a decade ago.

Including the virtual

Several tourism destinations have moved away from a strategy of wanting more and more tourists, to a focus on becoming sustainable. Venice is banning day visitors as it cannot cope with a million daily trippers. Increasingly, destinations are adopting remote and virtual offers, where you can see paintings, buildings and special locations such as Anne Frank’s hiding place in Amsterdam, without travelling.

If the tourism world can regard virtual tourism as a key element of the future, then medical tourism should regard the use of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and all remote healthcare advice as part of the medical travel package. It can be stand-alone, but also part of the pre-care service.

Remote medicine can also be the key to solving one of medical travel’s biggest problem – the lack of aftercare. Once a medical traveller has gone home, remote medicine can now be used to help the recovery and spot problems. Providers will need an in-country network to refer people to if they need in person help. This may be to a hospital or clinic, or a home visit by a medical professional.

Marketing is now essential

Several existing and new medical travel destinations are ramping up their national and local medical tourism campaigns.  The amount of money being spent by some countries to promote tourism and medical tourism is staggering, but they are competing for a market whose size will be much smaller than in 2019.

Some medical travel destinations are targeting specific countries and/or specific medical tourism categories, and often campaigns are often moving away from global targets to more local/regional ones.

Those places that build a new hospital expecting medical travellers to come, but do not spend money on marketing or have no real strategy for attracting international patients, will struggle.

Who are your customers?

Customers are going to be wary of travelling far, if at all. They will look for places they see as safe. One sector that, as they get more medical conditions, has been a target for medical tourism is older patients. However, feedback from the tourism world suggests that this sector is the most reluctant to travel in 2022.

It will also be difficult, and impossible for many countries and airlines, to welcome medical tourists who are unvaccinated.

Inevitably there will remain a segment of medical travellers who will still seek out the cheapest price for treatment, with fewer cares on safety.  But the cost of travel and accommodation is rising, as is the cost of healthcare, so only those able to afford to travel will become medical tourists.

Moving away from volume

Medical travel has long concentrated on the number of people it gets. If there are no new variations that close borders again, we will see more of a return to the past in terms of medical travel numbers in 2023. But it may take until 2025 to return to 2019 numbers.

The clever destinations know that a medical tourist may be worth several times a normal tourist in combined revenue. But that equation may need looking at as tourism itself moves from vast numbers to more high spending, eco and responsible tourism.

Some countries will make a choice that their future solely rests with responsible and eco-tourism, and so will stop promoting medical tourism.

Including domestic medical travel

If going overseas is a definition of medical travel, then driving five miles across the US/Mexican border is regarded as medical tourism, but flying 1,000 miles from Shanghai to Hainan, or 1,460 miles from Beijing to Hainan, is not.

If we count medical travel between the 26 EU states as medical travel, and between the 7 UAE states as medical travel, then we should include Mainland China to Hainan. This would put Hainan as the seventh largest medical travel destination in the world against 2019 figures.

In 2021, Hainan had 380,000 Chinese medical tourists.   Most places except Mexico were closed, but if this wider definition is used then Hainan could legitimately have claimed to be the largest medical tourism destination in the world last year.

Think smart this year

Be very cautious about reports on medical travel claiming that the numbers of medical tourists globally will increase by 20% a year, for years to come.  This misses the importance of revenue versus numbers and is based on massive guesswork.

Who goes from here to where and why could change quickly in 2022.

Medical tourism is neither dead nor dying, but nor is it booming. It is evolving. Companies and countries that do not change with it will lose market share or, like many medical travel intermediaries in recent years, will go out of business.