Medical Tourism Markets: Models of Sustainability. The Case of Spain and The Costa del Sol (Malaga)

Ricardo Pagan,Daniel Horsfall

doi:10.3390/su12218818

Abstract

The interest and relevance of medical tourism has increased significantly over the last few decades, and it has become a very lucrative source of income and profit for many firms. This paper analyses the sustainability of the medical tourism model in Spain in general, and in The Costa del Sol (Spain) in particular, in order to investigate the potential challenges that the domestic industry will face in the future. For this purpose, we first analysed the process of the globalization of health services and the main characteristics of the Spanish medical tourism industry (in terms of tourism and health services). Second, we examined the data availability on medical tourism for the cases of Spain, Andalusia and The Costa del Sol, and identified who travels, why, and for what reasons. The results show that Spain and The Costa del Sol offer high-quality medical and tourism facilities and services with very competitive prices, and with the high commitment and support of public local authorities, tourism and health providers, and universities. However, the lack of a real leadership, well-defined strategy, financial support, and specific training programs are considered to be crucial challenges for the near future. In addition to this, the novel coronavirus, the economic crisis, Brexit and the situation of British expats living in Spain and The Costa del sol are also discussed.

Highlights

Medical tourism is no longer a ‘new’ phenomenon, with the industry burgeoning throughout the first twenty years of this century
This paper provides data on medical tourism flows into Spain and the Costa del Sol region in order to underpin the argument that the local industry is built upon strong foundations, before breaking these down in order to highlight the importance of historical economic and migratory patterns
According to the latest figures, the tourism industry accounts for 16% of its gross domestic product (GDP), employs 13% of its total employment, a total amount of revenue generated of almost 92.2 billion euros (a 2.82% rise compared to 2018), and 83.7 million tourists (a 1.08% increase compared to the statistics from 2018) in 2019 [17]

Summary

Introduction

Medical tourism is no longer a ‘new’ phenomenon, with the industry burgeoning throughout the first twenty years of this century. While many individual providers may enter the market in the hope of appealing to the ‘customer in search of value’, traditional marketing concepts related to the cost of the product, word-of-mouth recommendations, advertising campaigns, and price differentials—while important—may be less important than wider trends These include historic trade-patterns, geo-political issues, and cultural ties [2]. Poland—as previously mentioned, a relatively new player in medical tourism—is a major destination for medical travelers from the United Kingdom (UK) Many of these are Polish citizens; these patterns reflect wider migration patterns [3], and are undoubtedly likely to be changed somewhat by the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU). The flow of medical travelers reflects the historic patterns of tourism underpinned by the close historical, economic and political ties between Spain and the UK [4]

Objectives

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion