The Impact of Health Tourism on Destinations and Attitudes of Local Residents

Abstract

The main purpose of this chapter is to discuss the destinations hosting health tourism and how the locals living there are affected by this situation and what the reasons are. The impacts of tourism on destinations and the attitude of locals towards tourism were discussed. Afterwards, the destinations where health tourism has developed and its impacts on the locals living there were discussed with different examples. As a result of the examinations, the positive impacts of health tourism are seen as contributing to the local economy, employment creation, improving the infrastructure and superstructure, giving importance to education, training qualified health professionals, and providing a better service standard. Its negative impacts are brain drain, supply-demand gap, inequality, ethical and moral problems, exploitative activity in poor countries (such as organ transplants and surrogacy), inflationary pressure, xenophobia, and alienation from tourism. The chapter was concluded with general evaluations, solutions and recommendations, and suggestions for future research.