Comparisons of Health Tourism Within the EU Countries

Health tourism is one of the sectors that includes two important branches, medical tourism and wellness-spa tourism and forms with the dynamism of health and tourism together. Today, the obstacles to accessing the health system, long waiting lists, the lack of diagnosis and treatment with new technology in countries of people, the desire to get quality health services at a more affordable cost, as well as vacationing or seeing different holiday destinations increase the demand for medical tourism. In this study, it is aimed to compare and evaluate the health tourism potential of the European Union, which has the third largest population in the world, in the context of medical tourism. France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Poland are economically important health tourism destinations. More than three-quarters of EU health tourism revenues are only among these five countries. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.