Recently Travel Agent has been bringing you updates on rising medical tourism - and with the recent debates in Washington over public healthcare, medical tourism abroad is looking more and more like an important option.
We'd like to introduce a new player in the game: Malaysia.
Between 2001 and 2006 the number of foreign patients in Malaysia increased three-fold, bringing in 59 million dollars in revenue in 2006.
Medical tourism has been popular in Malaysia amongst Indonesians, Singaporeans and Australians. But now the country is working on increasing the popularity of this industry.
Vivian Ho, the Medical Tourism Association's Managing Director for the Asia Pacific Region was quoted in Medical Tourism magazine saying, "Malaysia has declared a national interest and intent to grow their presence in medical tourism significantly; and progress is being made in organizing this effort with initial steps such as branding 'Malaysia Healthcare'. Its broad-based medical capabilities, attractiveness as a travel destination, health & wellness choices makes Malaysia an interesting medical tourism provider."
