In the United States and Europe, specialized medical procedures tend to be very pricey. For this reason, medical tourism has become an increasingly fashionable trend in the western world. Medical tourism refers to the tradition of traveling abroad in pursuit of cheaper and commonly better specialized medical treatments.
In Asia, Thailand is one of the premier destinations for medical tourism. The medical tourism establishment is starting to become one of the fastest growing sectors of Thailand’s economy. A single hospital in Bangkok, for example, received over 150,000 foreigners seeking specialized medical treatment in 2005. The Medical Tourism Thailand industry brought into the Thai economy an estimated 36.4 billion baht in 2006 alone.