 Mumbai: The Indian Medical Travel Association (IMTA) has welcomed Government of India's (GoI) recently announced Tourist Visa-on-Arrival for citizens of five countries - Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore, in an effort to promote tourism.
This facility has been useful not only for holiday tourists but also large number of foreign patients who now find it convenient to plan a visit to leading Indian hospitals for advanced health check up and medical treatment. Pradeep Thukral, Executive Director, IMTA said, "IMTA welcomes Indian government's new guidelines on Visa on Arrival and we have strongly recommended to the government to open up the facility to citizens of a larger number of countries. Most of the IMTA's member hospitals have reported higher volumes of patient arrivals and also enquiries from potential patients who wish to avail of Visa on Arrival facility."
Medical tourists spend more money and their time of stay is longer than regular tourists. Each visiting medical traveller to India spends on an average USD 5000 which makes this segment a special target for India's medical and tourism service providers. GoI and its various arms are actively supporting the growth of Medical Tourism to India. Ministry of Tourism (MoT) has achieved phenomenal success in last five years with its much acclaimed 'Incredible India' campaign that has multiplied the arrival of foreign tourists to India. MoT recently launched a new Medical Tourism Incredible India campaign that highlights India's unmatched service offerings both in modern medical treatment, as well as wellness promotion.
As per the release, the volume of foreign patient arrivals at Indian hospitals is growing at a healthy pace of over 40 per cent every year and Medical Tourism is indeed the next billion dollar opportunity after IT outsourcing for India to benefit from its fast expanding private healthcare infrastructure. Indian doctors and professionals are world renowned for their skills and the country has abundance of all the inputs like talented young manpower, local high quality manufacturing base for pharmaceuticals, technology hardware and software that makes the Indian costs for high end surgical procedures unique.
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