Is the medical tourism market growing?

Keith Pollard from IMTJ exposes some of the myths around market growth in the medical tourism sector, and highlights the growing interest in fertility travel.

Yes… and no. Firstly, don’t believe the hype or the myth of exponential growth. The medical tourism market is very, very complex. It’s made up of a multitude of niche markets where patients are travelling from one country to another for a specific healthcare need. Some of these are growing, and some of these are in decline.

Let’s take a couple of examples.

Firstly, the outbound market from the Gulf countries. For many years, government funded international patients from small oil rich states such as Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait has been a major source of revenue for leading hospitals in the UK, USA and Germany. But the falling oil price and investment in local health services is having a significant impact on outbound medical travel.

Kuwait has closed down its Supreme Committee for Overseas Treatment. It is reported that the number of Kuwaitis travelling for treatment has been reduced by 50% in recent years.

In Bahrain, the Health Minister has stated he is intending to reduce the number of citizens sent for treatment abroad, by providing more medical services within the Kingdom.

So… not great news if you’re planning to grow your international patient business from the Gulf.

Let’s take another example. One where we are seeing real growth. Patients who travel abroad for fertility treatment. Here we have a far more encouraging picture. Our web site Fertility Treatment Abroad is one of the busiest that we run. Visits are up by more than 25% over the last year. It’s a market that is funded by the patients themselves. And where public health services and insurers are cutting back on cover for fertility treatment, we’re likely to see a consistent upward trend in fertility travel. That’s why we have a Fertility Forum at the IMTJ Medical Travel Summit in Croatia – a session dedicated to developing this niche area of medical tourism.