Developing Medical Tourism in Bangladesh: Issues, Challenges and Policies

Despite rapid growth in tourism services in recent years, medical tourism remains a lucrative business for many developing countries in the world. In particular, the costlier healthcare facilities in the developed world have pushed many developing countries to invest heavily in medical tourism facilities to attract foreign patients for economic gain. Poor healthcare facilities and recent economic development in Bangladesh have also pushed many patients to get treatment from India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and other neighboring countries in Asia. As a result, Bangladesh is not only losing economically as medical tourists spend abroad, but also reveals the lack of quality in healthcare facilities. To better understand how Bangladesh could promote its medical tourism domestically and globally, the study evaluates factors affecting medical tourism based on the existing theories and literature. In so doing, the study identified a total of four factors (e.g. healthcare quality, institutional and cultural factors, macroeconomic, and individual) and several sub-factors for medical tourism. To promote medical tourism in Bangladesh, intensive planning, proper coordination among various units (private and public), public awareness, and quality of human resources (e.g. doctors, nurses, medical technologists, etc.) are required. Moreover, appropriate public and private investment in infrastructure is a prerequisite for promoting medical tourism in Bangladesh. Moreover, the study provides some policy implications and guidance to initiate medical tourism for a better and sound healthcare system in Bangladesh, both for domestic and foreign patients.