The International Healthcare Tourism Congress (IHTC) 2017: paving the way for India’s medical tourism industry

The International Healthcare Tourism Congress (IHTC) is to take place on the 3rd – 4th March, 2017 in Bengaluru.

International Healthcare Tourism Congress (IHTC) is a recognised knowledge platform of international standard for healthcare and tourism in India with an objective to bring together India’s top executives/ decision makers from the healthcare and tourism industry, innovative solution providers and stalwarts to discuss acute technological issues and business challenges currently facing the healthcare sector in India. It will, therefore, provide plenty of practical knowledge from medical tourism agencies (MTAs), tourism experts and medical marketing heads, with sessions addressing the latest and most recent developments. The IHTC is more than just a healthcare tourism conference. It is a dynamic forum packed with thought Leadership sessions over a period of two days.

By creating a platform and by bringing in all the stakeholders of the healthcare tourism sector under one roof, Ms. Anitha Niranjan, Managing Director – CIMGlobal wants to encourage the strength of the industry. Keynote address by Prof. Ravi Ramamurti (Distinguished Professor at North-eastern University and The Founding Director of The Center For Emerging Markets, USA). Also, a parallel session on outcome based round table closed door discussion, emerging multiple business models and stakeholders in promoting medical tourism.

IHTC have successfully acquired attention and support from both state and central government as the topics of the congress are well sorted as per the industry needs. Some of the topics to be discussed at the congress are as follows; embracing health innovation – India’s strength on health tourism, telemedicine, oncology, organ transplant, dentistry, etc.

IHTC 2017 will be planning and designing the congress around MTA’s and the Industry prerequisites. They are well aware that healthcare tourism in India is the next crown jewel that could shape the future of India’s economy and hence they are putting maximum effort into gathering the much-required support. The government also estimates that the growth of health-related services will be more than 5 percent for the next 10 years and that should further attract more visitors.

Major corporations such as Tata, Fortis, Max, Wockhardt, and Apollo Hospitals have made significant investments in setting up modern hospitals and tourism-related services to cater to the new brand of visitors from abroad.

India is a leading player in the Health tourism/healthcare industry. It is becoming increasingly more popular as the destination of choice for a wide range of health procedures.

Reasons why Bengaluru is a great location for medical tourism:

  • Highest number of JCI hospitals
  • Good supply of medical talent, including doctors, nurses, pharmacist etc.
  • Cosmopolitan outlook of the city, which is strong on hospitality.
  • Key source locations are aware of the city and the infrastructure and it can be leveraged. Source location countries for Bengaluru include Middle East and Africa, particularly, Central Africa Kenya, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. The city also sees patients from Oman, Iraq, Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Myanmar.
  • The City has well development ecosystem of partners including allied service like language translators.
  • South India has had a good start in attractive medical tourists and Chennai is leading the visitors in the country.

The event will offer an opportunity to interact with leaders in health tourism industry, both from local and global partnerships. This will be a platform for pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, health tourism agents, insurance companies, health technology manufactures, wellness and hospitality industry and healthcare investors to meet & associate.