The correlation between medical tourism and biotechnology

摘要

There is evidence of a correlation between the emergence and growth of modern medicaltourism and the growth of the international biotechnology market. But before we explorethis, we need to understand what medical tourism currently is and what it is becoming. The Medical Tourism Association~1 defines medical tourism as when people who live inone country travel to another country to receive medical, dental or surgical care while atthe same time receiving care equal to or better than the care they would have in their owncountry, and are traveling for medical care because of affordability, better access to care or a higher level of quality of care. Although the age of modern medical tourism arguably startedwith the dawn of the current millennium, medical tourism is as old as civilization itself.Over 2000 years ago, affluent citizens of Rome would often travel to the areas now knownas Switzerland and Turkey to take advantage of therapeutic mud baths and hot springs foundin those areas.