Any travel from one country to another to avail medical services can be considered as Medical Tourism. People may travel to other countries either because the cost of treatments in other countries is relatively lesser or because their own country does not offer the same standard of treatments or lacks the facilities that are required for a specific treatment. Medical tourism is now big business especially in developing countries such as Thailand, India and many South American countries. Even countries such as Malaysia and Singapore attract a lot of medical tourists due to high standards of medical care available. As per many surveys, medical tourists travel to obtain services ranging from simple dental and medical procedures to more complex treatments such as invasive surgeries, alternate medicine such as ayurveda etc. The availability of highly qualified medical professionals, international standard infrastructure, English as a common language and cost effectiveness of treatments is what attracts many medical tourists to developing countries to obtain medical services.

The rapid growth of the medical tourism industry has created a great demand for professionals who are trained in medical tourism and have a thorough understanding of medical tourism as a business. Most hospitals now have dedicated teams who work with international organizations and medical tourism companies to attract more and more international patients. Even smaller hospitals and private clinics are pushing their way through to attract more clients and increase revenues. Professionals who have good understanding of marketing concepts and have a formal training in medical tourism is what employers are commonly looking for.