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The number of people travelling abroad to seek medical treatment appears to have been growing in recent years. This could be part of a growing global trend.
Thailand is popular with tourists for its exotic beaches and breathtaking temples. Now this "Asian tiger" is luring another land of tourist: patients. The Thai Investment Board reports that Thailand treated over one million foreign patients in 2006. More than just mishappen holidaymakers, these patients were part of an expanding global trade in medical tourism which the board valued at US$40 billion worldwide and with global growth potential of some 20% per year.
Some estimates go higher still. A 2008 report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions estimated that the value of the world medical tourism market in 2008 was around $60 billion, and they expected double digit growth rates in the years ahead. And while a follow up report in 2009 suggested that the recession would slow this growth-a trend which recent reports from Thailand appear to echo-it still forecast that the number of US outbound medical tourists would reach 1.6 million by 2012.
The health sector has not been slow to respond to this phenomenon. An increasing number of countries or individual hospitals and clinics have actively marketed themselves as medical travel destinations, hoping to attract patients from neighbouring countries and further afield, through the promise of high quality, technologically advanced and...