More than 100 countries in the world have opened their doors, can medical tourism return to the past?

In the third year of the new crown epidemic, not long after the Spring Festival holiday, tourists began to talk about outbound travel again. This week, the A-share tourism and hotel sector performed exceptionally well. Among them, Qujiang Cultural Tourism and Caesars Tourism achieved the daily limit for three consecutive trading days.

The orderly recovery of the tourism market is not groundless. At the beginning of the new year, good news came one after another. According to incomplete statistics, more than 60% of the countries in the world have a clear trend of relaxing travel, or announced the lifting of epidemic restrictions or plans to gradually open their borders. Among them, Sweden became the first country in the world to declare the end of the epidemic. Pankanya, a professor at the Medical School of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, believes that Sweden has led the way, and other countries will inevitably join in.

For a long time, the domestic epidemic has been relatively successfully controlled. Coupled with the huge consumer market, Chinese tourists have become a favorite. As many countries gradually relax international travel restrictions, many people are wondering when China can relax the epidemic. What about restrictions?

As a country with a population of 1.4 billion, in line with the attitude of being responsible to the people and taking into account economic development, it is almost difficult to completely lift restrictions in a short period of time. The bureau approved the import registration of Pfizer’s new coronavirus treatment drug Paxlovid with conditions, domestic and foreign experts’ optimistic forecasts, and the “14th Five-Year Plan for Tourism Development” put forward the steady development of international tourism, which can be seen, and the conditions and environment that will help the recovery of international tourism. It is gradually taking shape, laying the foundation for my country's future resumption of inbound and outbound tourism. Although many details have yet to be confirmed, I believe that there will be good news soon, and we can still look forward to 2022.

01Opening doors to welcome guests all over the world

On February 3, the European Union News Agency reported that since the [UK] Prime Minister announced the cancellation of some restrictions related to the new crown virus in England, [Finland] Prime Minister Marin also announced that all new crown epidemic restrictions will be lifted in mid-February. According to previous reports, the [European Union] suggested in January that member states should open their external borders to 14 countries, and the United States, Brazil, Russia, India and other countries were temporarily excluded. Denmark, with a vaccination rate of 81%, has become the first EU country to lift all epidemic restrictions, while Morocco announced that it will reopen to tourists on February 7. On February 1, local time, the Prime Minister of [Norway] announced that the government will relax the epidemic prevention restrictions on the new crown virus, and tourists to Norway will no longer need nucleic acid tests when they arrive in Norway.

Even the "prudent" [New Zealand] has decided to gradually ease restrictions nearly two years after enforcing some of the world's toughest border restrictions. New Zealand Prime Minister Ardern said recently that the border will be gradually opened at the end of February and will be fully reopened no later than October. Likewise, nearly two years after closing its borders, [Australia] said it would open its borders to all vaccinated travelers on February 21, while unvaccinated travelers could apply for a travel waiver and would need to quarantine.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said countries' plans to open up were "very welcome". "The Asia-Pacific region has been very cautious about border restrictions, but there has been a clear trend in the Philippines, Thailand and New Zealand to ease travel restrictions in recent weeks," said Philip Ng, vice president of the Asia-Pacific region for the International Air Transport Association.

According to reports, [the Philippines] plans to reopen its borders to international tourists from February 10 and resume visa-free entry to the UK, US, South Korea, Australia, and others. Entrants must also be fully vaccinated and must have a negative PCR nucleic acid report within 48 hours.

February 17 (Reuters) - Japan's government announced on Thursday that it will ease its strict border controls and reduce quarantine requirements by increasing the number of people allowed into the country each day. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that from March 1, the daily entry limit will be raised to 5,000 from the current 3,500. The quarantine period for those entering the country will be shortened from the current 7 days to 3 days, and the quarantine period can be canceled if they have a negative certificate of the new crown test and have been vaccinated if they have received 3 doses of the new crown vaccine.

02International medical tourism under the epidemic

Medical tourism and tourism have both similarities and differences. It focuses on "medicine", supplemented by "tourism", and patients seek medical services abroad/transnational as the main goal. Compared with ordinary tourism, it is more of a kind to patients. Just in need, during the epidemic, some countries were more active in promoting the recovery of medical tourism.

[South Korea] Authorities are struggling to come up with new ideas to revive the industry and attract patients from abroad: Incheon Metropolitan City plans to adopt ICT-based telemedicine and consultation for patients from Mongolia, Russia and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member states Serve. It also plans to actively attract foreigners in South Korea, and Incheon plans to expand a system that provides pre- and post-entry services from entry to exit, provide interpretation services and pay for self-isolation. The Chungcheongbuk-do government has drawn up a five-year plan to revitalize medical tourism by 2025, offering VIPs health checks, facelifts, skin treatments, dental treatments and traditional medicine. Two districts in Daegu have been designated as Daegu Global Medical Special Zones by the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises. Six commercial operators in Shoucheng and Jung-gu, where hospitals and medical institutions gather, will launch special programs to attract foreign patients. Busan Metropolitan City will focus on regular and online overseas promotional marketing through social media. It plans to strategically support overseas marketing of hospitals and help them open telehealth centers.

【India】The Ministry of Tourism's medical tourism campaign "India Cure" has been launched in Dubai with a focus on building medical travelers' confidence in Indian healthcare professionals and ensuring quality control measures in the industry. The Indian Council for Medical Tourism and Health said it is seeking cooperation with other countries to invite medical and health travelers to India, especially from the Middle East.

IHH, one of the largest private hospital chains in Asia, operates 80 hospitals in 10 countries, with key markets including [Malaysia, Singapore, India and Turkey]. Demand for medical tourism is starting to rebound as border restrictions are eased and will surpass pre-pandemic levels, the IHH said.

The Egyptian General Directorate of Healthcare has signed a cooperation agreement with one of the leading national medical tourism companies in Egypt. The company will implement its programs in various medical specialties in authority hospitals that offer five-star treatment and accommodation. The campaign aims to bring patients from Libya, Yemen and 13 other countries. Authorities will also work with senior foreign experts to provide medical services, and in addition to efforts to introduce river transport services and air ambulances for critical cases requiring rapid transport, new services such as kidney, liver and bone marrow transplants will be introduced.

According to the [Malaysia] Medical Tourism Council (MHTC), making Malaysia a hepatitis C treatment centre is part of MHTC's recovery plan for the country's medical tourism industry. It is learnt that MHTC has also signed further MoUs with International Assistance Sdn Bhd and Hadid International Services. These partnerships will enable Malaysian healthcare players to build a strong presence in the Middle East and ASEAN markets and gain access to new customer channels.

[China] The government has formulated a new three-year plan for Hainan Province. It aims to attract 500,000 medical tourists to the island by 2025.

03 Looking forward to the future, there are traces of industry recovery, and the future can be expected

Although the domestic market performance in the past two years has been average, in terms of policies and industries, everyone has not given up tourism. On January 20, the State Council issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Tourism Development", proposing to normalize epidemic prevention and control. Under the premise of effectively controlling the international epidemic situation, we will innovate and enhance domestic tourism, promote inbound tourism in a step-by-step and orderly manner, and steadily develop outbound tourism. The "Plan" also emphasizes strengthening communication with tourist source countries and tourist sources in terms of international shipping, border crossing, vaccination, tourism team organization, medical insurance, etc. As soon as this policy was issued, it aroused strong attention in the circle.

At the same time, the "recovery period and accumulation period (2021-2022)", "growth period and release period (2023-2025)" proposed in the "14th Five-Year Plan for Civil Aviation Development" also confirms that China's current prediction of international travel, if everything can develop for the better, then 2023 should be a turning point for the tourism industry, and inbound and outbound tourism is expected to restart before 2025.

Looking ahead, international travel will eventually flow as vaccination programs progress and countries begin to open their borders in an orderly manner, and in the long run, demand for medical tourism will even outstrip large populations due to aging populations and heightened health awareness. pre-popular level.


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