top 10 countries receiving most foreign patients from around the world,”
Elif Ural, board member at the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies
(TURSAB), told Anadolu.
“In the ranking of health tourism in
countries, the top consists of Mexico, India, Thailand, Brazil, Türkiye,
and Singapore,” said Ural.
Ural stated that health tourism in
the world is categorized under three sections – medical, thermal, and
elderly-disabled tourism.
“As the TURSAB board, we are putting in
efforts to work together with our TURSAB Nature and Adventure Tourism
Specialized Presidency, as we aim to further develop our work within the
scope of ‘the Century of Türkiye’,” she said.
Ural mentioned
that there is a rapid growth in the number of hospitals, medical
centers, doctors, healthcare personnel, and travel agencies, all of
which play active roles in the rise of health tourism, thanks to
Türkiye’s tourism infrastructure.
She highlighted that TURSAB
carries out effective operations for the development of health tourism
and they work in cooperation with all public institutions and
organizations in the field, especially with the management of the
Turkish state-owned healthcare firm USHAS.
She cited the two
separate wide-ranged health tourism workshops organized by the
association with expert participants, saying: “Last year, we organized
health tourism information conferences in five different cities,
specifically Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Antalya, and Gaziantep, in which
we aim to attract high-income tourists to Türkiye in our ‘Century of
Tourism’ project. We will carry out a series of operations, ranging from
inventory organization to providing special training to our members,
from marketing strategies aimed for tourism of the regions to
promotional planning, and more.”
‘29 countries aimed for health tourism’
Ural
stated that USHAS targets 29 countries for health tourism to Türkiye,
which are the UK, Germany, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Kosovo, Romania,
Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait,
Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, Senegal,
Mauritania, and Nigeria.
She emphasized that Türkiye’s health
tourism revenues have been growing steadily, except for the decline in
2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Health tourism revenues were
at $1.49 billion in 2019, though this figure reached $2.3 billion in
2023, according to TurkStat data. However, despite the pleasing
increase, we know that we still have a long way to go, and as TURSAB, we
will continue to put in the effort to utilize Türkiye’s potential,” she
said.
Ural stated that foreign patients visiting Türkiye come within the framework of medical tourism.
“Patients
coming to Türkiye receive treatment mostly from units, such as
gynecology, internal medicine, ophthalmology, medical biochemistry,
general surgery, dentistry, orthopedics, traumatology, infectious
diseases, and ear-nose-throat branches, according to data from USHAS.
Apart from these, we also attract great interest in the fields of
aesthetics and hair transplantation; however, we do not have data on the
income items of incoming patients, as they are undisclosed,” she said.
“Foreign
patients go around the city where they are staying, shop, and taste
different flavors from our cuisine under the conditions permitted by the
treatment. Those who come for aesthetic and hair transplantation
reasons stay in accommodation facilities, as well as those who come for
thermal tourism, medical SPA, and elderly and disabled tourism mainly
use accommodation facilities. We can say that it is a segment that
attracts attention in general because it has a high added value,” she
added.
