A study on the Challenges and Outlooks of Medical Tourism in India with reference to Chennai region

Abstract

The phenomenon of traveling outside the country of residence with an intention to receive medical care can be termed as “Medical tourism”. Due to constant propagation and popularity among the media, researchers and the policy-makers this particular term “medical tourism” gained its momentum.  The necessity to adding the word "tourism" in this medical treatment concept is that patients along with their family/friends habitually prefer to stay in the country of visit even after the medical procedure and can take advantage of their visit by going to places of interest, day trips or participating in any other native tourism activities at that moment. Chennai city is slowly transforming to India's health capital. Multi- and super-specialty hospitals across the city bring in an estimated 150 international patients every day before the Covid-19 pandemic.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Chennai - cite_note-MedicalCapitalsPlaceInHistory-3 Chennai, as one of the primary destinations for rapidly increasing medical tourism, is eventually procuring the worldwide trademark as “The Medical Hub of India” because the recently emerging and existing multispecialty hospitals such as Apollo, Rela, Gleneagles and SIMS etc., Major factors that attracts tourists' inflow in the city include facilities during treatments offered, low costs on medical expenses, immediate appointments with no waiting period and the overall feel good factor in the tourist destination. The objective of this study is to determine the Challenges and Outlooks of medical tourism in Chennai city, and evaluate the actual potential foreign patients represented by Facilities, Cost, waiting period and feel-good-factor in recognizing the role of government and relevant departments in this medical tourism industry.

The researcher distributed 150 questionnaires to the selected international patients who were traveling to Chennai for medical goals to obtain medical treatments at four selected Private Hospitals in Chennai, during March2022 – May2022. The final sample size of this research was 80 which met the recommendation criteria.  The analysis results revealed that medical facilities offered by the private hospitals in Chennai according to special circumstances is in the verge of offering huge potential for medical and health tourism and Chennai will certainly develop into a primary hub for “medical tourism” in the near future.