Medical tourism in India: market potential and growth strategy

Abstract

Medical tourism is a concept wherein people instead of traveling for seeing places, travel overseas for satisfying their medical and relaxation needs. Medical tourism provides additional benefits of combining holidaying with health care. In India, medical tourism has taken off in the past few years, and this industry is expected to grow rapidly. Currently, Indian medical tourism industry is dominated by key private hospital chains like Apollo Hospitals, Escorts Hospitals, Fortis Hospitals, Wockhardt Hospitals, Arvind Eye Hospitals, Manipal Hospitals, Mallya Hospitals, Shankara Nethralaya, etc. The services offered, covers almost every medical treatment and the rates offered are relatively cheaper. This large differential in price coupled with beautiful and vast scenic locations for traveling will be the major force behind the development of Indian medical tourism industry in the coming few years. India faces competition from South East countries which also have similar advantages. But the medical tourism is yet to take off in a big way because of concern for hygiene, negative image, and lack of awareness, Infrastructural problems still exist, and the government has recently taken the initiative to support this opportunity. The target segments are broadly divided into two based on geography, and the marketing strategy is different for the two segments. The two broad categories are MTs from developed countries and MTs from developing countries.