Medical tourism in Portugal – a potential niche market

Abstract

In this age of globalized medicine, when international travel and access to online health information is easily accessible, medical tourism (MT) gains an important global perspective on health. Patients, in most countries around the world, are exercising crescent degrees of autonomy in their health care options, obtaining information from different sources from their regular health care providers and, in some cases, choosing to seek care alternatives outside of national health service. In Portugal MT, is still only in the early stages but is considered one of the strategic products for tourism development.

This study aims to explore the existing information on MT in Portugal. Information plays a very important role in attracting medical tourism and Portugal’s ability to design and implement information networks is largely known. Proper medical information systems are one of the most important tools for attracting medical tourists. The analysis in this paper reveals that Portugal presents the necessary conditions to be a destination of MT, due to the infrastructures and the human resources that it has, but currently few people know this country for the practice of medical treatments. Although the MT is in the introductory phase of the market, already has mechanisms to meet demand, it is still necessary to position itself in the international market. It will be necessary to create an image of Portugal associated with tourism linked to health care, creating a branding and slogans to promote the MT.