Medical Tourism Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Cross-border access due to affordability: Medical tourism includes bundled drug treatments and device-enabled procedures not accessible or affordable in the domestic region. For instance, patients in the U.S. get full IVF cycles in India for less than INR 4 lakh, which is four times the cost in their country, stated in Dr. Rita Bakshi report in 2025. Based on FDA report, the biologics and devices applied abroad typically come under a lower regulatory category, making them less expensive without limiting safety. Governments in Costa Rica and Turkey have embraced liberal import/export policies for medical supplies, facilitating quicker access for patients and saving them money. Increasing flexibility in international supply chains is consistent with the widening of medical tourism corridors.
• Tech-driven innovations: Firms are actively expanding their global networks via innovation. Apollo Hospitals in India collaborated with The Clinic by Cleveland Clinic in January 2022 to provide remote second opinions for cardiac and cancer treatment, resulting in a surge in international patients' bookings. Thailand's Bumrungrad International also introduced AI-powered diagnostics for foreign patients, enhancing pre-travel planning and post-discharge care. Such integrations reduce uncertainty and facilitate trust development with foreign clients.
• Increasing patient cases and disease occurrence: According to the OECD and Eurostat report, the endemic disease prevalence is driving the outbound patient expansion. In Germany, patients in need of orthopedic, cardiovascular, or fertility tourism treatment is expanding over the past decade. Aging populations and overburdened public systems increase delays in care delivery. As per the NLM report in July 2025, India is the primary place with 82% of Omani patients receiving treatment abroad. These population shifts generate stable demand streams for global providers of high-throughput, efficient specialty care.

Total Foreign Patients Visited from 2014 to 2024 in Korea

Source: Medical Korea, 2024

Cost Comparison on IVF Treatment in the U.S. and India

Source: White House, February 2025, World Fertility Services, February 2024

Challenges

• Trade barriers and exchange rate fluctuations: Turkey faced a severe depreciation of currency in 2023 due to inflation, which resulted in the price of imported U.S.-based diagnostic devices. This instability affected medical tourism supply chains, especially long-term B2B contracts. Key manufacturers, such as Abbott Laboratories, were forced to renegotiate agreements to incorporate quarterly floating exchange rate terms, making logistics more complex and rising operational uncertainty. Such macroeconomic volatility and trade complexities complicate it for the suppliers to ensure pricing stability and profitability in new markets, making high-risk markets less attractive.