Kerala has aggressively and smartly promoted Yoga and Ayurveda treatments, which helped them to establish themselves on the map of health tourism.
Our State government has realised the potential for the same and the Goa State Biodiversity Board has noted that traditional treatment methods can be excellent sources for earning foreign exchange as there are no side-effects.
The Central government has constructed the All India Institute of Ayurveda Hospital and Research Centre at Dhargalim. The project hasn’t started operating on a full scale and people who visit it mostly do so out of curiosity. The ayurvedic hospital at Dhargalim is yet to provide important treatment methods such as Panchkarma. On the other hand, the government ayurvedic centres are facing a shortage of the medicines.
The ayurvedic medicines haven’t been supplied properly to these centres for the last two months and patients end up being disappointed. Sometimes, the patients have to reluctantly buy these medicines from the open market which are not easily available either.
If at all the government is seriously willing to encourage health and wellness tourism, then these issues need to be looked at seriously. The State needs to take forward this topic by following in the footsteps of Kerala. Before telling the world about the facilities available here, the hospitals should be stocked with medicines to cater to the needs of patients.
Goa has already carved a place of itself on the tourism map and the number of tourists will only increase if wellness tourism is added to the list. To let this happen, stress should be laid on starting medical colleges in the State with enough doctors, nurses and affiliated staff. However, that does not seem to be happening. There is a golden opportunity to start two private medical colleges in both the districts, apart from the already existing Goa Medical College. This opportunity should be taken up on priority. The number of tourists visiting India for health treatments is rising. Since the treatments in America and European countries are costly, the advantage of relatively cheaper treatment in India is being taken by the tourists.
Out of 100 foreign tourists visiting India, 21 come here for the treatment. In 2021, over 15 lakh foreign tourists visited the country, out of which three lakh visitors had come for medical treatment.
The number in 2020 was 1.83 lakh. The share of visitors coming to India for medical treatments in 2010 was 2.7%, which jumped to an impressive 21.2% in 2021. That means the people coming for medical treatments increased eightfold in 11 years. There are three main reasons for this. First, treatment here is cheaper. A heart bypass surgery in America costs over a crore of rupees, while in India it’s done at Rs 4-5 lakh. The second reason is the less waiting period compared to Europe, where one has to wait for months. Thirdly, we have a team of world-class doctors present in the country. Out of 46 destinations of the world, India has been ranked 10th in the Medical Tourism Index by the Medical Tourism Association. This means that the country has fared better in terms of quality as well. When the country is making some notable strides in health tourism, Goa cannot remain a mute spectator.
Last year, around 66 lakh foreign visitors also visited religious sites. In 2021, only 10 lakh foreign tourists had visited India due to the pandemic. As per the data published by the Ministry of Tourism, 16% of foreign tourists - in the 25-34 age group, 21% in the 35-44 age group, while 22% in the age bracket of 45-54 visited India. Visitors aged above 65 were just 6%. In 2021, Punjab witnessed the highest number of foreign visitors with more than 3 lakh, followed by Maharashtra with 1.8 lakh, Delhi with 1 lakh, Karnataka with 70,000 and Kerala with 60,000.
There is no option better than health tourism for our State to make it into this list. Most visitors were from America (4 lakh), followed by Bangladesh (2.4 lakh), Britain (1.6 lakh) and Canada (8,000). The turnover of medical business in the country has touched the 50,000-crore mark and is predicted to reach 1 lakh crore by 2026. If Goa doesn’t decide what its share is going to be now, then it will not happen in future either.