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Health tourism on the rise? Evidence from the Balance of Payments Statistics

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  • Chung-Ping Loh

Abstract

The study assesses the presence and magnitude of global trends in health tourism using health-related travel (HRT) spending reported in the International Monetary Fund’s Balance of Payments Statistics database. Linear regression and quantile regression are applied to estimate secular trends of the import and export of HRT based on a sample of countries from 2003 to 2009. The results show that from 2003 to 2009 the import and export of health tourism rose among countries with a high volume of such activities (accounting for the upper 40 % of the countries), but not among those with a low volume. The uneven growth in health tourism has generated greater contrast between countries with high and low volumes of health tourism activities. However, the growth in the total import of health tourism did not outpace the population growth, implying that in general the population’s tendency to engage in health tourism remained static. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Chung-Ping Loh, 2014. "Health tourism on the rise? Evidence from the Balance of Payments Statistics," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(7), pages 759-766, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eujhec:v:15:y:2014:i:7:p:759-766
    DOI: 10.1007/s10198-013-0521-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Svitlana Tsokhla & Natalija Simchenko & Оlena Polishchuk, 2015. "Structural Development of Health Resort Staff in the Republic of Crimea," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(3), pages 149-160.
    2. Lohmann Martin & Schmücker Dirk, 2015. "Nachfrage nach gesundheitsorientierten Urlaubsformen in Deutschland," Zeitschrift für Tourismuswissenschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 5-18, May.
    3. Nadezda Pakhomova & Alexey Kazmin & Natalia Kvadritsius, 2017. "The Economic Performance and Size of Firms: the Case of Russian Health Resort Market," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(3), pages 895-907.
    4. Loh, Chung-Ping A. & Triplett, Russell E., 2019. "International accreditation, linguistic proximity and trade in medical services," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 1-1.
    5. Jorge Ridderstaat, 2023. "Measuring hidden demand and price behavior from US outbound health tourism spending," Tourism Economics, , vol. 29(3), pages 759-787, May.
    6. Florence Neymotin, 2024. "Medical Tourism: Babies Across the Border," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 22(2), pages 547-562, June.
    7. Yakov P. Silin & Natalya V. Novikova & Olesya V. Kharitonenko, 2023. "Structural and industrial transformation of resort towns’ economies: The case of urban districts in the Republic of Crimea," Journal of New Economy, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 24(1), pages 26-49, April.
    8. Loh, Chung-Ping A., 2015. "Trends and structural shifts in health tourism: Evidence from seasonal time-series data on health-related travel spending by Canada during 1970–2010," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 173-180.
    9. Tsyokhla, S. Yu. & Simchenko, N. A. & Polishchuk, E. A., 2015. "Development of human resources structure for health resort facilities of the Republic of Crimea," R-Economy, Ural Federal University, Graduate School of Economics and Management, vol. 1(3), pages 456-465.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health tourism; Trade in services; Quantile regression; I15; F60;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • F60 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - General

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