Healthy arrivals

The number of people flocking to India for medical treatment grew significantly in recent years and there is enormous scope to increase the country’s share of the global healthcare market.

BANGLADESH and Afghanistan are the top two contributors to India’s rising medical tourism market, which grew from 2.34 lakh in 2015 to 4.27 lakh in 2016 and hit a new high of 4.95 lakh in 2017, according to data from the Ministry of Tourism.

In 2017, South Asia accounted for 64.37 per cent of all foreign tourist arrivals in India for medical treatment, followed by West Asia (20.29 per cent) and Africa (10.09 per cent).

According to a 2018 estimate by the International Medical Travel Journal, India occupied the sixth position among all medical tourism destinations in terms of value, earning $450 million; the United States was at the top position ($3,500 million), followed by South Korea ($655 million), Thailand and Turkey ($600 million each) and Germany ($575 million).

In 2017, Iraq had the highest proportion of medical travellers among all tourist arrivals from that country (84.72 per cent), followed by the Maldives (68.56 per cent), Yemen (54.87 per cent) and Nigeria (43.71 per cent).