However, these are countries to which Western tourists travel for pristine beaches, but not for medical care. Is it those with the highest economic growth rates? No. At the beginning of the new millennium, many developing countries experienced unprecedented economic growth. One African country, Botswana, had the highest rate of economic growth in the world in 2002. India’s economy expanded by 8.2 percent in 2003, and China is said to have supplanted the United States as the capitalist engine of the world. But while India is at the forefront of medical tourism, China has few facilities and Botswana has none. Is it those most endowed with precious resources? No. Diamonds, oil, and gold have rarely brought development to third world populations nor have their proceeds been channeled into the expansion of any industry, let alone medical tourism. A handful of OPEC member countries and South Africa are exceptions.
Medical tourism is studied in the following countries: Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, India, Jordan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Africa, and Thailand. Some of these countries have been called emerging markets, and one is a member of the high-growth Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) group.60The selection of these countries and the omission of others by no means implies that medical tourism does not exist elsewhere. To the contrary, it exists in Singapore, Greece, Romania, and the former Soviet Baltic states. However, these countries cannot be classifi ed as “less developed.” Singapore, which most recently belonged to that category, now has a per capita income that ranks it among the highest in the globe. Its medical tourism industry, while long standing, has priced itself out of the mass market as the rates of its services are comparable to those in Western states. Greece has combined its hugely successful tourist industry with medical care. Given its membership in the European Union (EU), it serves as a cheap alternative for West Europeans. Latvia and Lithuania are also discovering the benefi ts of medical tourism and are well poised to offer it, given their communist legacy of human capital, developed infrastructure, and decent overall health care. However, none of these countries is included in the study as our focus is on medical tourism as a development strategy for LDCs.
Moreover, some developing countries that offer medical tourism services have not been included in this study. Indonesia, for example, was omitted because its services are largely limited to traditional medicine and the number of foreign patients is tiny. China, despite having come a long way from its barefoot-doctor days and despite its efforts to promote export of health services, continues to have very few medical service exports.61 Chinese traditional medicine, including acupuncture, is demanded across the world, but it is the large Chinese diaspora that has been quick to offer such services. Indeed, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, all countries under study, have successfully merged Chinese practices (together with their own traditional medicine) into the export of high-tech health services. In the Middle East, both Bahrain and Dubai are actively promoting medical tourism in an effort to establish themselves as the centers of health care in the region. Dubai expects to build the world’s largest medical establishment (so large that it is called a city: Dubai Healthcare City) by 2010. However, at the time of writing it is still many years away from completion, so Jordan is the Middle East destination included in the study because of its longstanding medical tourism tradition.
Medical Tourism and a New National Revenue for the Developing Countries
