Medical tourism potential in Northeast

Bureau of Immigration data on foreign tourist arrivals is a pointer to India’s emergence as a hub for medical tourism. With Bangladesh accounting for more than half of the medical tourists visiting India, Assam can leverage its proximity to the neighbouring country to attract a significant percentage of them. The upcoming campus of the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) at Changsari, near Guwahati, which is scheduled to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi later this month, will help Assam give a push to medical and wellness tourism in the state. Being located in a biodiversity hotspot, Assam and neighbouring north-eastern states have the natural advantage of boosting tourism. Most prime tourist destinations in the region are preferred by domestic and international tourists because they offer wonderful and long-lasting nature-based experiences that have a therapeutic impact on tourists, reduce their mental anxiety, and energise them. The expansion of tertiary healthcare services in the public as well as private sectors in Guwahati and neighbouring areas and the opening of a host of super-specialty hospitals in Guwahati have created an ecosystem for the development of niche medical tourism products and triggered the potential for the growth of startups in the medical tourism industry in the region. The National Strategy and Roadmap for Medical and Wellness Tourism formulated by the Ministry of Tourism to boost medical tourism in the country provides the policy framework required for such start-up ideas to take flight. Key pillars of the strategy envisage developing a brand for India as a wellness destination, strengthening the ecosystem for medical and wellness tourism, enabling digitization by setting up an online medical value tourism travel portal, enhancing accessibility for medical value tourism, and promoting wellness tourism. The liberalised e-Tourist Visa scheme, which was renamed the e-Visa scheme, includes e-Medical Visa and e-Medical Attendant Visa as sub-categories. In the case of an e-Medical Visa and an e-Medical Attendant Visa, triple entry is permitted, and extensions may be granted up to six months on a case-by-case basis on the merits of each case by the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) or Foreigners Registration Officer (FRO) concerned. Arrivals of foreign tourists to India for medical purposes increased from 4.95 lakh in 2017 to 6.97 lakh in 2018. The figure declined to 1.83 lakh in 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic travel disruption but started picking up again with the arrival of 3 lakh medical tourists in 2021. The national strategy has laid special emphasis on the Northeast region, and the strategy document states the Ministry of Tourism will work with the Department of the North East Region and the North-East States to develop medical and wellness tourism in the region. The policy document defines medical tourism as ‘activities related to travel and hosting a foreign tourist who stays at least one night at the destination region for the purpose of maintaining, improving, or restoring health through medical intervention’ and classifies such medical intervention into three categories: medical treatment, wellness and rejuvenation, and cures through traditional systems of medicine. It has, however, harped on the distinction between medical tourism and wellness tourism. It points out that “successful medical tourism depends upon the status of a country’s broader medical sector, along with appropriate government regulations, patient safeguards, training standards, insurance frameworks, travel and visa restrictions, and other issues that drive the patient’s experience and treatment outcomes.” The appeal and success of wellness tourism depend on an entirely different set of factors, including business models, customer mindsets, human resources, and industry culture, and it is more closely aligned with leisure, recreation, and hospitality, according to the strategy document released in January last year. The push for connectivity in the region and the improvement of road, railway, air, and waterway connectivity have spurred growth in the tourism industry in the region. India’s Act East Policy and Neighbourhood First Policy and various connectivity projects to facilitate tourists from friendly neighbouring countries in south and southeast Asia to the northeast region have unlocked huge opportunities for exponential growth of the tourism industry. Entrepreneurs in the tourism sector taking note of these developments, along with the rapid expansion of air connectivity to and within the region, can be inspired to innovate unique medical tourism and wellness tourism products to capitalise on the opportunities. The tourism and travel industry addressing the issue of availability of trained and skilled personnel, which has been identified as one of the key challenges in the national strategy, in close coordination with the State Governments will be crucial to promote new Startups in the medical tourism sector. With the return of peace and fast-forwarded development activities, the Northeast region has emerged as a prime venue for bilateral and multilateral events, which has reimposed the centrality of the region in India’s engagement with neighbouring countries. This has created opportunities for Assam and neighbouring states to showcase their potential in these events and promote a unique brand of medical and wellness tourism to open a new growth pathway.