Medical tourism - International Conference, Call For Paper ...

Malaysia attracted an estimated 300,000 medical tourists.
Thailand attracted an estimated 1,200,000 medical tourists.
While in the year of 2007, India attracted an estimated 450,000 medical tourists. The data stated above
reveals Malaysia is the country that has least medical tourists. This small amount of medical tourists
indirectly reflects the quality and the reputation of our country’s medical tourism.
1.3 Statement of the Problem
Table 1.2.1 showed the number of patients and the revenue generated from medical tourism in
Malaysia starting from the first year of medical tourism in Malaysia to year 2007. The number of
foreign tourists does have a relationship with foreign earnings and revenue. The increasing number of
foreign tourists in Malaysia will cause the foreign earnings and revenue in Malaysia increase too.
However according to the data provided by Keckly and Underwood (2008), we know that Malaysia has
experienced smaller scale of medical tourists compared to neighbor countries. As a result, Malaysia
was having a lower foreign earnings and revenue from the medical tourism industry. Other than that,
Chan, K. E. (2009) said due to the economic slowdown, some medical tourists may postpone their
treatments which are not serious such as cosmetic surgery and knee surgeries in Malaysia. This even
makes the problem worse.
This delay would have an impact on hospitals which offer these services, hence reduce the inflow to
these hospitals and have a domino effect creating a reduction in the inflow of funds through medical
tourism.
According to the data provided by Keckly and Underwood (2008), the medical patients who came to
Malaysia for medical treatment were fewer than our neighbour countries. From this point of view, there
was a serious problem. Without a solution to this problem, Malaysia will be unable to compete with its
neighbours causing a loss in potential revenue.
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