The downfall in medical tourism in India can be attributed to a few key factors. Over the past several years, India has been a popular destination for medical tourists due to its affordable healthcare services, skilled medical professionals, and availability of world-class facilities. However, some recent challenges have started affecting this industry:
- Global Health Crises and Travel Restrictions: Travel restrictions or political changes (such as visa regulations or diplomatic relations) can deter patients from certain countries.
- Rising Healthcare Costs in India: While India was once known for its cost-effective medical treatments, in recent years, healthcare costs have started rising due to inflation, increasing demand for quality care, and the expansion of high-end medical infrastructure. This has made treatments more expensive, reducing its competitive advantage over other countries that offer affordable healthcare.
- Competition from Other Countries: Countries like Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia have been increasing their share of the medical tourism market by offering high-quality medical services at competitive prices. Additionally, they may have better marketing or more attractive tourism packages for medical tourists.
- Concerns Over Quality of Care: Despite India having world-renowned hospitals, there have been some high-profile cases of medical errors, unsafe practices, or malpractice that have harmed the reputation of the healthcare industry. This has led to a perception problem, where prospective patients might worry about the quality and safety of medical services, especially when compared to Western standards.
- Economic Factors: The global economic downturn, inflation, and changes in currency exchange rates may discourage patients from traveling abroad for medical procedures, as people have less disposable income for international travel, including medical tourism.
- Evolving Patient Expectations: International patients today have higher expectations for seamless experiences, which include everything from travel logistics to post-operative care. If India’s medical tourism infrastructure, in terms of language barriers, patient support, or follow-up care, is not up to par with expectations, people might look elsewhere.
Despite these challenges, India still retains a significant share of the medical tourism market, particularly in specialized fields like Cardiology, NeuroSciences, Organ Transplants, etc.,. ?However, overcoming the current setbacks requires improving infrastructure, ensuring quality standards, and enhancing marketing efforts to regain the confidence of international patients.
Group Head - International Business at Rainbow Children's Hospitals | Rainbow Children's Heart Institute l Masters in Business Administration l Healthcare Management
1 个月Post covid, the emergence of few competitive markets like Turkey Thailand and even Dubai made a big impact. Especially Turkey has drastically reduced their cost of medical treatment and came down to near India pricing in addition they offer convenient medical visa process. The babus at Indian embassies abroad still impose tidious process to get a medical visa. To conclude, the process of travelling to India, cost of the treatment and emergence of new competitive markets are the 3 major factors for decline in medical travellers to India.
International Healthcare Professional
1 个月The biggest factor is cost which used to be our USP… in last 2-3 years INR depreciated close to 15% but this was never passed on to the patients. On the contrary the cost still increased by 10% of SOC in most of the hospitals…. Second reason is the Intra competition of hospitals within the country… which is tarnishing our image across borders. Patients are getting 10 quotations from 10 different hospitals which leads to confusion; even they can recieve 3 different quotes from different hospitals which lead of the same group… There are more smaller factors like safety issues, environmental issues in Metro cities, visa issues etc But overall the pace with which Indian MVT was growing has slowed down drastically post COVID or maybe having a negative growth. We are missing the new Ideas in this constantly changing world..
Would like to add a point to this decline.1.Unlike Thailand where every patient gets medical visa on arrival, India still doesn’t have a straightforward visa system in place. A medical visa costs more than a tourist visa and requires unnecessary paper work. 2.medical tourism ecospace increasingly being overrun by middlemen,a lot of the expenditure is going towards people who are in between, acting as third parties, who are making this a business model.
Father. Friend & Healthcare
1 个月Competition; Turkey & Egypt are not only fantastic but equally competitive markets with similar skill set like India & are prospering. From pricing perspective; Indian pricing might have gone 15-22% up (last decade or so) yet still seem affordable to masses especially the middle class medical tourist space. For closure- Services nowadays are coming to be one of the most vital factors to a medical tourist / attendants in choosing the hospital destination to travel.
Dy-Manager in Narayana Health Kolkata || Ex - Columbia Asia || MHA || 9 years experience in Healthcare Industry
1 个月Insightful perspective. I completely agreed Sir.