Medical Tourism in Bangladesh : Present Scenario and Strategic Model for One-Stop Service

Human health is an uncompromising substance. The word “health” refers to a state of complete emotional and physical well-being. Health can be defined as physical, mental, and social wellbeing, and as a resource for living a full life. It refers not only to the absence of disease, but the ability to recover and bounce back from illness and other problems. Medical tourism is the concept of traveling far and wide for better medical treatment. It is an economic activity that entails trade in services and represents the mixing of two of the largest world industries: medicine and tourism. The globalization of the health care sector and the massive demand for low cost-high quality treatment in recent times has caught the attention of many developing countries that have the adequate resources and potential to meet these demands. The main purpose of the paper is to evaluate present status of medical tourism in Bangladesh and based on strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats to develop a strategic one-stop service model. We hypothesized that the key competitive advantages of Bangladesh in medical tourism stem from the following: low cost advantage in treatment, low tuition fee in medical education, opportunities of many diversified treatments such as medical, dental, surgical, paramedical, Ayurveda, homeopathic, acupuncture care etc. and the diversity of tourist destinations available in the country. Two surveys were done: One from the patients and other from the doctors. Furthermore, some doctors and medical technologists were interviewed face to face. Having collected all the qualitative and quantitative data, we have done appropriate analysis and apply relevant statistical tests of significance to ensure validity and reliability of result. SWOT and TOWS matrix have been composed to explore current status. To find out the principle factors, structural equation modeling has been done with path diagram analysis. For robustness checking, OLS analysis has been constructed. Various types of chart analysis were adopted to display actual fact and figures. In order to realize the full potential of medical tourism industry, this paper will open a door of opportunities in this industry. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.