This book examines medical tourism as an emerging component of the tourist industry and a distinct and controversial element of health provision. The book consists of 10 chapters. The first chapter discusses the reasons why medical tourism has emerged. The second chapter examines a vast range of practices and brings together tourism and health, and a number of particular places, from sites of indigenous importance The third chapter examines practices of nurturing the mind and the spirit in various ways. The fourth chapter discusses the evolution of medical tourism. The fifth chapter examines the emergence of Asia in medical tourism and the combination of factors that have given it contemporary primacy. The sixth chapter examines the marketing of medical tourism, and the particular role of the Internet in this process. The seventh chapter seeks to examine who medical tourists are, where they come from, why they became medical tourists, where they go and what impact this has had on (mainly) destination countries. The eighth chapter discusses the ethics of medical tourism. The ninth chapter examines how medical tourism constitutes a particular form of niche tourism. The tenth chapter discusses the globalization of medical tourism.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : patients without borders -- The antiquity of health tourism -- Mind and matter : health tourism or cosmetic surgery? -- The rise of medical tourism -- Medical tourism and the new Asia -- Marketing medical tourism -- The economics of medical tourism -- Extremes, ethics and inequality -- But is it tourism? -- Global health.

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Also available in print format.

Title from PDF title page (viewed August 5, 2013).