| Verified against primary record | |
| Tourism perspective | Residents visiting another country [1] |
|---|---|
| Independently reported | |
| Medical scope | International travel for medical care [2] |
| Definitions checked on 2026-09-25. Bands apply only to the rows beneath them. Independently reported rows describe institutional accounts or this entry’s stated synthesis. No provider-supplied figures are used. | |
Outbound Medical Tourism describes residents travelling to another country to obtain medical care, viewed from their country of residence. The definition used here combines Eurostat’s outbound-tourism classification with the CDC definition of medical tourism. [1][2]
Usage in medical travel
The CDC reports that medical travel can involve dental, fertility, cancer and surgical care. Reported motives include access to unavailable procedures and care from professionals sharing a language or cultural background. [2]
Eurostat describes domestic and outbound tourism statistics as the demand side of tourism measurement. Its methodology identifies the trip as the statistical unit for trip data: a total of journeys does not necessarily represent that many different people. [3]
Applied to medical travel, this distinction means that repeat journeys by one patient cannot be read as separate patients without supporting methodology. Eurostat also distinguishes trip statistics from expenditure, which measures spending by or on behalf of visitors. [3]
Related terms
Inbound medical tourism is the receiving-country perspective on an international medical journey. Domestic medical tourism concerns travel within the country of residence. [1]
Health-service imports are an economic concept rather than a patient count. The OECD’s 2009 explanation includes residents obtaining care from providers abroad, while distinguishing travel-related services from remote services such as telemedicine. The latter does not itself require a patient journey. [4]
See also
- Terminology, the vocabulary used to classify journeys for care
- Costs and insurance, the financing concepts distinct from counts of outbound patients
References
- Eurostat. Glossary: Tourism. publication date not stated. Retrieved 2026-09-25.
- Rhett J. Stoney and Laura Leidel, CDC. Medical Tourism. Yellow Book, 2026 edition; published 23 April 2025. Retrieved 2026-09-25.
- Eurostat. Trips of EU residents – annual data (tour_dem). metadata updated 19 March 2024, sections 3.1 and 3.5. Retrieved 2026-09-25.
- OECD. Health at a Glance 2009: OECD Indicators. 2009, section 7.7, page 172. Retrieved 2026-09-25.
Sourcing note: Eurostat classification and statistical-unit definitions were checked directly on 2026-09-25. The article applies those definitions to medical travel. CDC and OECD descriptions are independently reported; the studies and national accounts underlying them were not individually verified. No current outbound patient total is asserted. No sources or confirmed published related-page slugs were supplied in the brief; sources were located for this entry.