TRADITIONAL AND COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE FROM HEALTH TOURISM PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Health tourism, which is defined as travels for treatment, staying fit, protecting and improving health, has become an important source of income for countries in the last 20 years. Depending on globalization and the development of technology, the number of tourists traveling for health purposes is increasing rapidly in the world. In parallel with these increases, the demand for traditional and complementary medicine applications and products in the world is increasing. In Europe, more than 100 million people are traveling to receive these applications, and 25 million people are using traditional and complementary medicine products. These travels and expenditures provide significant income to the national economies. In Turkey, there has been an increase in both investments in health tourism and investments in traditional and complementary medicine applications and products in recent years. Turkey aims to gain more economic gains through its natural beauties, advanced medical infrastructure and recent investments on traditional and complementary medicine. With this conceptual study, it is aimed to address the Concept of traditional and complementary medicine from the perspective of health tourism.