This study defines and explores health tourism and its three main components: medical, wellness, and spa tourism. Health tourism comprises around 5% of general tourism in the EU28 and contributes approximately 0.3% to the EU economy. Health tourism has a much higher domestic share than general...

This study defines and explores health tourism and its three main components: medical, wellness, and spa tourism. Health tourism comprises around 5% of general tourism in the EU28 and contributes approximately 0.3% to the EU economy. Health tourism has a much higher domestic share than general...

Governments are increasingly establishing health regions to deal with current challenges of public health service. These regions are seen as instruments to balance public and private stakeholders, and offer health care to regional citizens as well as to medical/health tourists. However, it is...

Within European cross-border health care, recent studies have identified several types of international patients. Within the Anglo-Saxon setting, the specific terminology of medical tourism is used. The analytical purpose of the paper is to resolve this semantic difference by suggesting an...

Purpose – Hospitals need to determine if an international patient department is a necessity to communicate with and manage international patients. Design/Methodology/Approach – A benchmarking instrument was created to assess the level of professionalism in managing international patients,...

Purpose – Non‐discursive practices such as the economy and political constellations have always caused shifts in history. However, in the network society of today, these shifts have become omnipresent. Globalization of health and medical tourism have created a shift or rupture in the history...