Medical tourism as national economic development in Asia: comparative case study of Singapore and Thailand, versus Japan and Taiwan

Medical tourism development has been put on the national economic development agenda by a number of Asian countries in the last fifteen years. Beginning with the forerunners of Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, subsequently other countries, notably India, the Philippines and South Korea, joined the fray. Most recently, Japan and Taiwan also declared that they would promote medical tourism. The governments of these countries seem to share a common policy goal in developing medical tourism, i.e. to increase foreign exchange earnings, expand medical and other ancillary services, and generate employment opportunities. However, each country has developed different strategies in targeting specific niches in the international healthcare markets. In this paper we compare state strategies and market formation of two “early wave” countries, namely Thailand and Singapore, with the two most recent “later wave” countries, Japan and Taiwan. In their marketing strategies, Thailand and Singapore target diverse countries across the globe. In contrast, Japan and Taiwan have focused their strategies to solely target the emerging market in China. We explore the roots of these differences in the character of the states and the nature of domestic health policy. While Thailand and Singapore can be characterised as developmental states (or have come from such a historical background) with strong mandates to pursue aggressive economic development and growth strategies, Japan and Taiwan, being East Asian welfare states, have to be more cautious in balancing citizens’ rights and private interest. By teasing out the differences in the medical tourism development policies of these countries and tracing their linkages to the characteristics of the states, we aim to contribute to deepening our understanding of changing public health policies in the context of globalization