Medical tourism in Germany losing Russians

 06-Mar-17, Tourism Review 

Medical tourism in Germany seems to lose many clients. The numbers of foreign patients coming to the country for surgery went down. Especially the Russian market, which was very strong for many years, is not providing that many medical tourists as before.

Image: Tourism Review

The medical tourism sector increased by 1.4 percent in 2015, amounting to 255,000 patients from 177 countries and EUR1.2 bn in revenues. However, the Russian market has changed. In 2014 Russia was the most important source market of medical travelers with about 9,800 inpatients and 15,000 outpatients. 2015, however, recorded a decline of 32 percent with respect to Russian patients.

The reason for the decrease was most likely the EU's economic actions against Russia in late July 2014 in the wake of the Crimean annexation. The treatments became quite costly for Russian travelers.

 Read the full article  

 Insights