Global Health and Medical Tourism

About The Event

Many health systems worldwide are facing significant challenges due to the emergence of issues determined by an increasingly “global health” context and competitive medical tourism dynamics. Coping with global health issues means many things, such as envisioning new ways of managing migrations of people, providing basic and affordable access to care in developing countries, strengthening institutional relationships among bordering countries to create integrated health systems, coordinating the interventions of the vast group of humanitarian associations, developing capacity at governance level of health systems under stress to make them more resilient, and more…

Addressing these global health issues is fundamental, as they have implications on both under-developed, developing and mature health systems.

Tourism is about relaxation, pleasure and an increase in well-being and even health. Travel for physical well-being and medical care has long been common practice. The attempt to achieve better health while on holiday, through relaxation, exercise or visits to spas, has been taken to a new level with the emergence of a new and distinct market referred to as medical tourism.

Medical tourism is the practice of people traveling outside their country of residence for the primary purpose of receiving medical treatment. While a few years ago only a handful of hospitals and countries promoting themselves as medical tourism destinations, today, it is estimated that there are hundreds of hospitals and clinics and over thirty different countries promoting it. According to estimates, around 3-4 percent of the world population travel internationally for medical treatment, generating over USD 100 billion.

The economic and social significance of medical tourism has provided scholars with various research opportunities such as to-date, global health and medical tourism has been the subject of various scientific investigation. Medical Tourism has developed for many reasons. For searching best quality/cost services. For reaching the top clinicians, the highly specialized services with best outcomes. For saving money in hyper standardized services where the only driver for choice is cost. But also, for getting access to services that simply not available in their own country, or not affordable. Within this global health scenarios, medical tourism is quickly developing, in many different ways. And many countries are pushing their own health systems and providers to become more competitive in attracting medical tourism. Generating a global competition on many health issues.

This conference will provide a unique forum for attendees from academia, industry, government, and other organizations to actively exchange, share, and challenge state-of-the-art research and industrial case studies on global health and medication tourism. The goal of the conference is to thoroughly examine contemporary global health and medical tourism issues, stimulate dialogue, and develop new perspectives in the field within the globalized environment. The conference invites conceptual, empirical, and methodological research papers, and country context case studies on different themes relating to global health and medical tourism. Papers and presentations are expected to address both the theoretical, methodological, and practical aspects of global health and medical tourism.

All accepted papers will be published in a conference proceeding with ISBN. Furthermore, papers will be considered for publication in special issues of the following journals:

    Tourism Review (SSCI impact factor: 1.060)

    Health Service Management Research

    Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management (SSCI impact factor: 3.011)

    International Journal of Spa and Wellness