Authors: Evangelia Kasimati, Panagiota Dionysopoulou, Oriana Marcela Dinca

Title: Medical tourism in Greece: recent developments, growth potential and prospects

Abstract

At a time when Greece is called upon to comply with new trends in tourism, in order to face the profit losses of previous years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, medical tourism seems, as will be seen later, to be one of the tourism products, which will be able to stimulate the Greek economy.

In recent years, efforts have been made by public stakeholders (Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Foreign Affairs) in order to create an appropriate institutional framework and to promote medical tourism abroad. Moreover, various private stakeholders carried out actions to inform and coordinate the parties involved (medical staff, hotel industry, insurance companies, etc.) through conferences and cross-border collaborations with other EU member states (e.g. the project "Innovative Medical Tourism Strategy" within the framework of the European Territorial Cooperation Program "Interreg V-A Greece-Italy 2014-2020").

In the light of the foregoing, this study examines the possibilities and prospects of developing medical tourism in Greece.

In the first part of the study, the existing international framework related to medical tourism will be presented in detail, namely: the factors that enhance the development of medical tourism, the necessary resources, the practices and the parties involved. In order to present appropriate proposals for Greece in medical tourism, it is necessary to look for trends and good practices that have been successfully developed by third counries over the last decades, such as India, Singapore, Thailand, Mexico, Hungary, Turkey, as well as to examine the cross-border cooperation and the medical care of diaspora in their country of origin. Furthermore, the assessment of the effects on the economic and health sectors will be analysed, as well as possible legal issues due to the provision of medical care abroad.

The second part will focus on the case of Greece, specifically on the evaluation of: a) the actions, b) the factors that favor the development of medical tourism and can offer a competitive advantage, compared to competing countries (Turkey and Spain).

Subsequently, it will be analysed the results of the primary research, in which the directly and indirectly involved stakeholders were invited to participate, and the related literature, in order to find out the possibilities of highlighting and establishing  Greece as a medical tourism destination (adequacy of the current legislation and existing resources and infrastructure, quality of services in health and tourism sector etc.), as well as detailed proposals for further development of this sector.

Keywords

Medical tourism, legislation, certification, stakeholders, cross-border healthcare