The Entrepreneurial Opportunities In the Medical Tourism Industry Essay

The conclusion chapter will present all the collected data and draw conclusions. The reason for choosing this topic was to find out the entrepreneurial opportunities in the medical tourism industry. It can be said that the medical tourism has been a growing industry. Each objective is concluded individually and the methodology is evaluated. The dissertation ends by making suggestion for future research and make recommendations.
6.2 CONCLUSIONS
The aim of this study is to analyze and understand the business opportunity of entrepreneurs especially in health care and tourism. To recognize the market this industry has to offer and identify an overview of the entrepreneurial opportunities in the field of medical tourism. Analyzing the literature review and the collected data through the survey and the interviews completed the aim. Each objective is explained separately.
The first objective was to outline the awareness of medical tourism. Through the primary data the findings proved that even though the medical tourism industry is booming, many are still unaware of the existence of the concept. This was contradicting with the secondary data. When two people are talking about the medical tourism industry, they might be talking about two completely different things. The main reason that people are unaware is because there is no official term or definition for people traveling abroad for medical treatment. The language and terms used in the medical tourism sector is very confusing. Is it medical travel, global tourism, healthcare tourism? People are wondering, what should we call it? Once this will be established the awareness will rise immensely. The media interest and coverage helps the industry with the awareness, but there is a lack of concrete and up to date data.
There is an increasing amount of studies written about medical tourism, but those studies are hardly evidence based. Evaluations and research has not kept pace with this developing industry. Increasing the media attention by focusing on experiences of patients and positive reviews from friends and family that are medical tourists will help raise the awareness on this topic.
Johnston et Al (2010) and Cohen (2011) both pointed out that there is danger in the medical tourism industry they say that the medical tourists are weakening the local healthcare. The results from the surveys and interviews disagreed with those assumptions. They believed that in the long run the medical tourism industry would benefit the local population. The private hospitals are competitive and keep investing in the best doctors and technology, which results in more employment. In addition the public hospitals learn from the private hospitals and have access to high-end technology.
The second objective was to identify what spur medical tourist to travel abroad. The two main categories are people that are going abroad because of the cost. It is cheaper, so they benefit from saving money and traveling to another country. The second category is people that are going abroad for quality. The treatments they require are not offered in their own country or better doctors are abroad.