Australia to Jump on Medical Tourism Bandwagon

August 22 2008 by Simon Wallace

Medical tourism has in recent years emerged as a growing industry the world over. As differing countries develop medical cures and procedures at contrasting rates and house a variety of treatment specialists, a large number of people are opting to travel abroad for treatment.

The trend has grown on the precedence of combining a holiday with treatment. More and more countries are offering package surgeries which combine cheaper, more specialist treatment prompting a greater movement of people worldwide for such procedures.

The industry has been further boosted by the growing demand for cosmetic surgery, surgery which is viewed by many as over-priced and non-critical in the European countries.

With such movement carrying a great deal of potential wealth it seems that the Australian tourism board is looking at how Australia can gain a role in the industry.

The news comes after the Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) formed a panel to discuss how to tap into the billion-dollar market. Tourism is viewed as essential for the economic development of any country and Australia has found wilting figures for the number of holiday tourist visas being issued and is subsequently looking to attract overseas nationals via new methods.

According to Deloitte auditors, exported medical travel from the U.S alone could be worth USD$162 billion by 2012. Speaking about Australia's potential plans Matthew Hingerty, the panel's Managing Director said, "We believe that we can model the development of health tourism in the same way that we have built education tourism into a $10 billion annual industry for Australia."

The panel which met to discuss such propositions was been formed with the premise of conducting risk and cost assessments of introducing health tourism to Australia.

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