Asian medical tourism analysis report available
An company called RNCOS that prepares reports on industry research has released a report titled “Asian Medical Tourism Analysis (2008-2012)”. The reports costs $1,400 to $2,000 depending on license so we won’t be getting a copy. But there is a short overview available that has a few interesting points.
First is that despite the global economic downturn medical tourism has been Asia’s fastest growing tourism segment. However, the summary makes the statement that medical tourism in the region is “in its infancy”. That is hardly the case in the major destinations such as Thailand and India which have been building upon a solid medical tourism industry for years. Thailand has been receiving several hundred thousand foreign patients per year for the last decade. I don’t think I would call that infancy.
Some other points in the summary include a projected CAGR of around 17% for 2010 to 2012 in medical tourism in Asia. There’s a bit of an issue with that statistic caused by lumping everything into “Asia”. That’s a huge region with a wide variety of capabilities in medical tourism. Some countries like Thailand are already huge in the industry and have actually suffered some setbacks in their growth rates, while other countries keep announcing they are or intend to be medical tourism hubs but have little more than some vague plans for development. The summary says that the six Asian markets covered in the report have vast differences in terms of cost, infrastructure, human resources, patient perceptions, competencies, and level of government support. So they do get deep into details of each of the six countries – Thailand, India, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Philippines.
Thailand, India and Singapore are said to own 90% of the market share for medical tourism in the region and the report is projecting India to emerge as the fastest growing and will capture 26% of the market by 2012. The report is intended for industry analysts and investors to guide them toward how they might position to take advantage of the growth in the industry.