Non-discursive practices such as the economy and political constellations have always caused shifts in history. However, in the network society of today, these shifts have become omnipresent. Globalization of health and medical tourism have created a shift or rupture in the history of healthcare provision and into the lives of different stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to detect and assess the rupture caused by global health care or medical tourism within the field of the written media, in order to define the reality of medical tourism as a trans-historical field. The methodology of this study comprised an extensive discourse analysis of written and new media performed over a time frame of more than a decade. Market, medical, ethical and patient discourses were detected along scientific sources, international and local newspapers. Results indicate that a change in the market discourse has caused a shift in the attitude towards medical tourism, where ethical voices are seen as submissive to the market logic. In the current time perspective, medical tourism has become more mature with the development of non-ethical counterparts such as organ tourism and reproductive tourism as a consequence. The research framework shows that the general public receives a normative message from the medical tourism sector.
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In Malaysia, a country that ranks among the world's most recognised medical tourism destinations, medical tourism is identified as a potential economic growth engine for both medical and non-medical sectors. A state-level analysis of economic impacts is important, given differences between states in economic profiles and numbers, origins, and expenditure of medical tourists. We applied input-output (I-O) analysis, based on state-specific I-O data and disaggregated foreign patient data. The analysis includes nine of Malaysia's states. In 2007, these states were visited by 341,288 foreign patients, who generated MYR1,313.4m ($372.3m) output, MYR468.6m ($132.8m) in value added, and over 19,000 jobs. Impacts related to non-medical expenditure are more substantial than impacts related to medical expenditure, and indirect impacts are a substantial part of total impacts. We discuss management and policy responses and formulate recommendations for data collection.
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In this review article, the authors contextualize the contemporary practice of medical tourism in terms of the concept of worldmaking, which was introduced (in this journal) with two articles a year or two ago by Hollinshead. Here, the authors first contextualize medical tourism in terms of "worldmaking" per medium of the observations of the corporeal realms identified by Alexis de Tocqueville almost 200 years ago. In 1835, de Tocqueville wrote with enthusiasm tinged with nostalgic regret about the new world of American democracy that he then saw as the world of the future. A serious rupture in history took place of which he became a most relevant critic. But there have been (according to Mainil, Platenkamp, and Meulemans) many ruptures since then: that is, there have been short periods of "in-between worlds" that became ever more anchored in the timeline of Western history. Today, they argue that tourism as a field of expertise, practice, and knowledge is intertwined with several other networks of expertise. It is responsible (itself) for many small "ruptures" in these modern times. Mass tourism can be seen as such a shift. Sustainable tourism and the attention paid to climate change would be another such shift. And the authors of this review argue that an interesting and deep-seated case in this regard is medical tourism. They argue here that medical tourism has a great deal of worldmaking capacity, especially by means of the Internet and international marketing tools. It arises in the interstices of the interacting networks of a global world. It crosses borders in line with emerging power structures in a global network, but it also meets local resistance or regional obstacles that are related to other networks. In between these worlds of human experience, various interactions of perspectives on the concept of health itself come to the surface. Within the field of medical tourism different stakeholders play a role in a worldmaking process. Our reviewers from the Low Countries thereby argue that medical tourism itself is responsible for a Tocquevillean rupture within and across our global network society. In their view, medical tourism also constitutes a new hybrid-that is, as a hybrid medical paradigm that seems to be appearing within the performative and productive world of tourism.
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The phenomenon of transnational health care has grown rapidly over recent years and this book provides a comprehensive landscape of diverse research communities' attempts to capture its implications for existing bodies of knowledge in selected aspects of medicine, medical ethics, health policy and management, and tourism studies.
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In the troubled times in which we currently live, the tourism industry has called into question a need for more responsible social practices and more mindful utilisation of natural environments. The Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, has not only become a new wellness trend, but also a great potential for deeply immersive tourist experiences. While there is a wealth of studies examining the positive effects of forest bathing focussing principally on its medical benefits, this qualitative study extends these debates through documenting lived experiences of forest bathers. In so doing forest bathing suggests its latent potential to offer a profoundly mindful experience, and aims to situate this practice more prominently within the tourism discourse.
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Chapter 39 in Health, Tourism and Hospitality: Spas, Wellness and Medical Travel, 2nd Edition takes an in-depth and comprehensive look at the growing health, wellness and medical tourism sectors in a global context. The book analyses the history and development of the industries, the way in which they are managed and organised, the expanding range of new and innovative products and trends, and the marketing of destinations, products and services.
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This paper adopts a problematising review approach to examine the extent of mitigating climate change research in the sustainable tourism literature. As climate change has developed into an existential global environmental crisis and while tourism's emissions are still increasing, one would expect it to be at the heart of sustainable tourism research. However, from a corpus of 2573 journal articles featuring ‘sustainable tourism’ in their title, abstract, or keywords, only 6.5% covered climate change mitigation. Our critical content analysis of 35 of the most influential papers found that the current methods, scope and traditions of tourism research hamper effective and in-depth research into climate change. Transport, the greatest contributor to tourism's emissions, was mostly overlooked, and weak definitions of sustainability were common. Tight system boundaries, lack of common definitions and incomplete data within tourism studies appear to hamper assessing ways to mitigate tourism's contribution to climate change.
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This qualitative research note reports two neglected themes in research on virtual reality tourism experiences, i.e. its potentially addictive nature and temporary sense of isolation. Existing work on virtual reality tourism experiences has applied existing knowledge and theories and has solely tested how VR applications can positively mediate or moderate the tourist experience. This study adopted an inductive approach, analyzing contents of reviews and blogs, and consequently uncovered a temporary sense of isolation and the addictive nature of virtual reality as hidden themes within virtual reality tourism experiences. We stress the importance of further work on addiction and a sense of isolation in terms of their nature, role, and effects
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