From recent findings, wellness tourism and medical tourism might be two separate industries as they are two individual concepts.According to a latest report after having conducted an exhaustive insight into the two potentially different industries, it appears that these two might be distinctively different. From the various accumulated data and after analyzing the concepts by approaching the critical issues and case studies, it has been inferred that wellness and medical tourism might just be two separate entities.
When coming to the definitions of medical tourism, wellness tourism or health tourism, it seems that these are open-ended definitions. This is what has resulted in a lot of confusion amongst these terms, particularly when it comes to the generic term health tourism. Apart from the confusion in terminology, the wellness tourists are entirely a different consumer when compared to the medical tourists, and this makes it more confusing. After a lot of deliberation and analyses, here are the definitions that finally emerged:
Medical tourism:
This stands for tourists who travel to different countries for being treated for an ailment or disease along with lower cost and better quality of care than in their native country. This could also include people who require cosmetic enhancements or dental surgical procedures.
Wellness tourism:
This stands for those tourists who go to different countries in order to improve their well being and personal health by pursuing certain activities. This caters to those who seek authenticity in the experience that is not available in their native country. This experience generally does not involve medical doctors.The wellness industry thrives on improving life and although the term "wellness" is relatively new, the market has reached a whopping $106 billion around the globe. The term is now widely used particularly in marketing. In fact, wellness is now synonymous to tourists who are seeking spa, and integrative health and fitness.
Another difference is that the medical tourists refers to the tourists as patients and emphasises on the technology and expertise whereas the wellness tourists are usually referred to as guests and they focus more on the experience or ambience. The other more obvious distinction is the way the country's government plays a role in promoting medical tourism rather than wellness that is privately taken care of.Therefore, it is challenging to merge both medical and wellness tourism because of their individual properties. The win-win situation ideally would be a cross-promotion wherein tourist travels to another country for wellness and decides to opt for medical procedures there!
