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

These factors and competitive advantages will able to improve the current status of medical tourism in
Malaysia and attract more medical tourists to Malaysia. Besides, it helps Malaysia to become a global
medical hub. Therefore, by attracting more international patients, the revenue and profit will be
increased and it benefits many other related industries.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Medical Tourism
Medical tourism or medical travel is the act that patients travel to other countries obtaining medical,
dental, and surgery care. Almost two decades ago, Goodrich & Goodrich (1987) defined health-care
tourism as “the attempt on the part of a tourist facility (for example a hotel) or destination to attract
tourists by deliberately promoting its health-care services and facilities, in addition to its regular tourist
amenities”. It is a new and niche industry that combines leisure and health care. The definition of
medical tourism and wellness tourism were equally interchangeable in Europe during the 1960’s and 1970’s,
it refer to a combination of leisure and health-care, the facilities referred to 20 years ago generally
included spas, resorts, hot springs, were added to this definitions. Connell (200 5) defined medical
tourism as a niche industry “where people often travel long distances to oversea countries to obtain
medical, dental and surgical care while simultaneously being holidaymakers, in a more conventional
sense”(p.1094). The emergence of medical tourism satisfies the needs for the growing number of
foreign patients, mainly in developed countries. This not only benefits foreign patients but also those
medical tourism destinations, principally in developing countries. Another definition of Medical
tourism is it occurs when international patients travel across boundaries for their healthcare and
medical needs Monica (2007).
2.2 The rise of medical tourism in Asia
Surprisingly, some Asian countries such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, South Korea
attracting a combined 1.3 million medical tourists per year from around the world, and is increasing
annually. The main region of medical tourism is shifting to Asia in this decade. It is projected to
generate more than US$4 billion by 2012 Gupta (2007). Besides that, there are many other countries
seeking to enter this new industry such as Latin America, Eastern Europe, South Africa countries. Even
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