Medical Tourism in Kolkata, Eastern India (eBook)

This book examines the global influence and scope of medical tourism with an emphasis on the city of Kolkata in Eastern India as an emerging destination at the regional scale. Through a geographical research perspective, the book discusses the importance of the phenomenon of medical tourism including recent trends, policies, and scale studies to develop sustainable strategies for medical tourism at particular micro destinations. In nine chapters, readers will become familiar with the multi-billion dollar industry of medical tourism and the problems currently associated with medical tourism at multiple scales. The trends of medical tourism in and around the city of Kolkata are used to demonstrate the roles of infrastructure and stakeholders in implementing feasible and sustainable medical tourism in an emerging destination.

The first two chapters of the book provide an introduction to medical tourism and the methodologies of this study. Then chapters three through nine focus on medical tourism in the case of Kolkata to discuss the regional applications and developments of medical tourism. Topics addressed include medical tourism facilities, stakeholders and tourists, guest-host relationships, an assessment of development versus risk, and an evaluation of strategies to manage rising medical tourism in Kolkata. The concluding chapter discusses future strategies that could be used to implement the potentialities of a metropolitan city as a medical tourism destination, based on studies done in Kolkata. Readers who will find this work of interest include students, practitioners, geographers, and researchers and policymakers engaged in the medical tourism industry. 

Dr. Anu Rai is an Assistant Professor of Geography in the School of Science at Adamas University. She graduated from Shri Shikshayatan College at the University of Calcutta in 2009, post graduated from Presidency College, the University of Calcutta in 2011 and received her PhD in Geography from the University of Kalyani in 2016 where she was a Research Fellow from 2012 until 2015. She has taught in several colleges and universities in West Bengal and has given talks at several national and international geographical seminars. Her research interests include the study of the geography of decision-making and management, spatial interaction for healthcare and space reconstruction and resource redistribution from a geographical perspective.