Nowadays, it is mentioned an annual traffic of 30 million people within the scope of health tourism with the purpose of taking a better quality healthcare with more affordable prices and shorter waiting times. Expenditures of health tourism in the world are expressed with approximately 500 billion dollars. It is estimated that it will reach 1 trillion Dollars in 2023. Our country, especially in recent years, has been providing high quality healthcare services to its own citizens thanks to the Health Transformation Program. Turkey with the potential of rapidly developing healthcare tourism rises to the top among the most preferred countries within the world for this purpose. Our aim is to meet the demands of those who want to get high quality, fast and efficient health services all over the world, especially in the neighboring countries of the region.
Our another goal is to get 20 million dollars annually from health tourism income in 2023. Our country has an important geographic location that covers about 1 billion people and 57 countries at 4 hour flight distance. Turkey is considered as the most ideal region for health tourism thanks to the ease of transportation with the national airline Turkish Airlines which makes flights to the most points (120 countries, 299 cities, and 302 airports) in the world.
There is no barrier in front of Turkey’s becoming one of the most preferred countries in health tourism. Turkey has lots of following advantages which make Turkey a shining star in the world in the field of health tourism. These advantages are:
- High level of qualified human resources, especially in medical staff
- Special geographical structure
- Seasonal advantages
- High quality health service provision
- World class technological and medical equipment which are available up to 60% favorable price advantage compared to Europe
- The world’s first place in the top thermal resources
- Young and dynamic population compared rapidly growing elderly population in the world
- And, in addition to all, traditional Turkish hospitality
In our country, we have 48 health facilities that provide services in European standards accredited by JCI. However, the number of private and public facilities under the control of the ministry, providing the highest quality health services in this area, is much more than that. The city hospitals which started to provide services this year will also contribute to the increase in the share of our country from health tourism.