Correction… The medical tourism industry is nine times smaller than we thought!

Is the medical tourism market really worth $439 billion dollars? Keith Pollard revisits the claims from the Medical Tourism Association (MTA) and sets the record straight.

Last week, I highlighted in the IMTJ blog, the MTA’s latest PR claiming: “Medical Tourism Industry Valued at $439B” and is “Poised for 25% Year-Over-Year Growth by 2025”. It was classic MTA hype. Someone publishes a figure, it looks ridiculous but “hey, why should we try to validate this? Perhaps it will help us to sell more conference places, certifications etc etc.”

Well, last Friday the market shrunk nine fold….

IMTJ didn’t believe the numbers in the Visa/Oxford Economics report and quoted by the MTA. So, we queried them with Visa/Oxford Economics. Others in the industry, including the MTQUA did the same. On Friday, IMTJ received a correction from Visa:

“Visa’s recent study, Mapping the Future of Global Travel and Tourism, included a figure that estimated the size of the medical tourism at $439 billion… Upon further review and based on additional information, Visa will be updating that figure at about $50 billion based on industry consensus. We apologize for the confusion this may have caused.”

So, there you go. The industry is nine times smaller than we were told last week!

The concerning aspect is that the MTA was saying “This report and the rankings of the Medical Tourism Index™ provide a unique opportunity for investors seeking new ventures to make smart choices in destinations driving patient travel.”

Let’s hope that sane and sensible investors didn’t pay any attention to the latest “load of tosh” (English idiom) coming out of Florida and made smarter choices by looking for information elsewhere.

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As Editor in Chief of International Medical Travel Journal (IMTJ) and a Healthcare Consultant for LaingBuisson, Keith Pollard is one of Europe’s leading experts on private healthcare, medical tourism and cross border healthcare, providing consultancy and research services, and attending and contributing to major conferences across the world on the subject. He has been involved in private healthcare, medical travel and cross border healthcare since the 1990s. His career has embraced the management of private hospitals in the UK, research and feasibility studies for healthcare ventures, the marketing and business development aspects of healthcare and medical travel and publishing, research and consultancy on cross border healthcare.