'Medical tourism to be $100bn industry by 2012'

The Medical Tourism sector is growing exponentially all over the world and is set to become a $100 billion sector by 2012, a new report has said.

The sector is growing at a rate of 20-30 per cent annually and is bound to continue its growth pattern in the years to come.

According to Frost and Sullivan, the business research and consulting firm, the medical tourism industry is currently a $78.5 billion industry [end-2010], catering to over three million patients who travel around the globe for medical care.

The Middle East is one of the latent source markets of patients and it is estimated that 20 per cent of healthcare seekers worldwide are from Gulf and Arab states.

Significantly, patients from UAE alone spend about $2 billion in healthcare travel on an annual basis.