Showing posts with label Tourism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tourism. Show all posts
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
Medical Tourism
Location : Highway I-95, Providence, RI, USADay & Time: Saturday & 9:00 am
Mr. Adam Smith a 49 years old well built American, father of three teenagers, while driving back to home after his 18-hole game, felt uneasiness in his left arm. The uneasiness grew as he was driving further. He imagined that death is chasing him & stepped on the gas. He took the next exit and luckily got a hospital close by. Later he learnt that it was a very mild heart attack. He is out of danger. However, the physician said that he needs to go through a major heart surgery to keep his heart beating for few more decades, as the diagnosis revealed something else about his heart.
Mr. Smith has good bank balance but has planned everything for his teenagers’ college tuition fees in the very near future. Smith’s medical insurance doesn’t cover the entire expenses of his heart surgery. He needs to plan something for his surgery quickly.
At this situation, Smith comes to know about Medical Tourism from his Indian friend, Raj. Smith learns from Raj that medical tourism or medical tour is an act of traveling to other countries to obtain medical, dental, and surgical care. The term was initially coined by travel agencies and the media as a catchall phrase to describe a rapidly growing industry where people travel to other countries to obtain medical care. Leisure aspect of traveling may be included on such a medical travel trip.
Raj mentions that because of the low cost and world class services, India is one of the hot destinations for medical tours. Other popular destinations for medical tourism are Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Columbia etc. He also mentions that there are plethora of travel agencies that offer medical tours to India from USA, UK and other high cost western countries.
Smith gets this site to learn more about medical tourism in India and the costs associated with various surgeries. He is very surprised to learn that for less than half of the price of his heart surgery in USA, he can go to India, get his surgery completed and visit the places like Taj Mahal he always wanted to visit. Voila..!!!
He goes to India, carries out his heart surgery and visits the exotic places like Taj Mahal, Jaipur and Manali.
Now Smith is very sound in health and is referring this table to his American friends and writes to New York Times on how he rejuvenated by taking up a medical tour to India and saved a fortune.
Mr. Smith has good bank balance but has planned everything for his teenagers’ college tuition fees in the very near future. Smith’s medical insurance doesn’t cover the entire expenses of his heart surgery. He needs to plan something for his surgery quickly.
At this situation, Smith comes to know about Medical Tourism from his Indian friend, Raj. Smith learns from Raj that medical tourism or medical tour is an act of traveling to other countries to obtain medical, dental, and surgical care. The term was initially coined by travel agencies and the media as a catchall phrase to describe a rapidly growing industry where people travel to other countries to obtain medical care. Leisure aspect of traveling may be included on such a medical travel trip.
Raj mentions that because of the low cost and world class services, India is one of the hot destinations for medical tours. Other popular destinations for medical tourism are Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Columbia etc. He also mentions that there are plethora of travel agencies that offer medical tours to India from USA, UK and other high cost western countries.
Smith gets this site to learn more about medical tourism in India and the costs associated with various surgeries. He is very surprised to learn that for less than half of the price of his heart surgery in USA, he can go to India, get his surgery completed and visit the places like Taj Mahal he always wanted to visit. Voila..!!!
He goes to India, carries out his heart surgery and visits the exotic places like Taj Mahal, Jaipur and Manali.
Now Smith is very sound in health and is referring this table to his American friends and writes to New York Times on how he rejuvenated by taking up a medical tour to India and saved a fortune.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Reality Tours
Most of the reality shows from American Idol (also Indian Idol) to Apprentice to The Big brother to the regional Jodi No.1 (Vijay TV) were super hit. Actually there is no reality in these reality (?) shows per se. But somehow they satisfy our mentality of peeping other's house out of curiosity (!). I think that is the main cause for the success of these reality shows.
In line with these reality shows I came to know about Reality Tours. I felt this is simply atrocious. Read about one such reality tours here. This is targeted mainly at foreign tourists. Tour takes to Dharavi, Mumbai the biggest slum in Asia to show them the poor slum people.
Some excerpts from the site, which sells the reality tours:
A few visitors have been to Dharavi, including Prince Charles and Bill Clinton recently, and it is by no means dangerous to go alone.
We are very aware of not wanting to invade and disturb the residents of Dharavi. .......we have a strict NO CAMERAS POLICY.
(how great?!)
80% of profits after tax from these slum tours are donated to local NGOs (charities).
(how great?!)
(how great?!)
On this tour you travel in the comfort of an a/c car. Throughout the tour, we want to show and explain to you areas that are not in the tourist guides, but give an insight about issues facing the less privileged members of society....
Look at the comments section of this reality tour site without fail.
What do you think?
Note: I came to know about this reality tours from here.
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