Tangible ways forward
In order for tourism to promote good health and well-being for all, a comprehensive,cross-sectoral and people-centred approach is needed, which takes local people’s as well as tourists’ health and safety into account and puts a strong focus on equity in order to ensure that local people are not structurally disadvantaged.
On a global scale, the risk of rapidly spreading infections due to more international travel has to be factored in when developing early warning mechanisms. The fact that more and more areas of the world get accessed by tourists can support the development of cures and vaccinations for health risks in the Global South which were earlier of little economic interest for pharmaceutical companies. However, these cures have to be made available and accessible not only to affluent tourists but to everyone at risk.
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Taxes from tourist spending should be used to improve public health care systems, allowing for equity and access, particularly for vulnerable groups, in order to avoid further privatization and inflation of medical costs. It is the duty of governments to discourage a dual system of strong disparities where better quality services are reserved for foreign clients with a higher purchasing power while their citizens often lack access to basic health care. Governments in the Global South could set quota regulations, which require a set number of treatments of locals for every foreigner treated there.
Governments need to develop and enforce laws regarding bioethical questions with regard to tourism, such as organ trafficking, transplant and fertility tourism to effectively protect vulnerable groups within and beyond their borders in line with relevant international guidelines, such as the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), specifically the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Per- sons (which also includes organs and the Istanbul Declaration on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism by the International Transplantation Society (TTS). Through transparent public donor programmes governments should strive to meet the demand for organs at the national level.
Not all forms of medical tourism involve surgeries or curative treatments. Beyond recreation, in the field of health-oriented travel there is a growing demand for alternative medicine and wellness treatments. This brings great chances for small-scale authentic tourism products that involve local and indigenous communities and their traditional concepts of medicine, health and well-being.
Until today, only a very small part of the world’s population is able to take vacations and to travel internationally. Tourists should bear in mind that, for example, in Europe the entitlement for paid leave was a long and hard struggle by the Trades Unions for workers’ rights to health and recreation. Tourists should critically reflect upon their personal consumer behaviour and make sure that it does not infringe on the local population’s rights to a healthy and dignified life.
Tourism has great potential to foster healthy lives and well-being for both tourists and local communities if the risks involved are reduced by effective preventative measures. For tourism to contribute significantly to Goal 3, revenues generated from tourism need to be invested in health care systems that are of good quality and accessible and affordable for all.