Dubai’s attractive location, especially its easy access to the East and the West, along with the availability of talent and technology has enabled the city develop a strong and favorable opportunity to develop its health tourism offerings. Joint efforts between the private and public sector and several key public and government institutions, has contributed to the growth and development of a robust health tourism sector in Dubai.  

In 2016, Dubai witnessed an overall growth of 9.5 per cent in the number of medical and health tourists in Dubai - the emirate received 326,649 international medical tourists. A majority of international patients came from Asia (37 per cent), followed by Arab and GCC (31 per cent) and Europe (15 per cent).

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Revenue generated from international patients was worth over AED 1 billion, reinforcing the growing contribution of the sector to the national GDP.

Orthopaedic, dermatology and ophthalmology were the most sought medical and health tourism specialties. However, Dubai is also well known for cosmetic, dental and fertility treatments.

Dubai’s Top Wellness & Treatment Centres

Today, Dubai is able to appeal to a wider audience who may be on the lookout for more wellbeing-related treatments in line with international benchmarks. Integrated health centres in Dubai like DNA Health for instance, located at the Jumeirah Al Qasr five star hotel, next to the Award winning Talise Spa, offers complete health check-ups along with a holistic written lifestyle plan, consultation with a functional medicine consultant, nutritionist and stress management consultant.  The Retreat Palm Dubai, the regions first holistic wellbeing resort on the Palm, offers health checkups along with three to seven days of a complete detox plan with consultation, food and stay. It also offers wellness packages for adults and children, including weight management. The hotel includes the Rayya Wellness Centre, a homegrown brand, a spa, a recreational centre and a nutrition clinic.

Dubai also offers a range of medical spas and treatment centres that have professionals licensed by DHA and offer various alternative treatments like homeopathy, ayurveda etc.

Many patients from the more developed parts of the world today travel outside their home countries for health-related services. This is due to a number of different factors, including the, better quality of healthcare infrastructure, the opportunity to combine medical treatment with tourism, low cost of travel and readily available information on the internet.

The objective is to provide patients with a unique experience, the highest medical service standards using state-of-the-art technology accompanied by highly specialized and educated staff, following only the leading global standards.

Creating a Caring Experience Through www.dxh.ae

With the availability of modern technology and infrastructure, each patient can investigate and arrange healthcare facilities remotely using a trusted website and medical facilitators.

Dubai’s effort are aimed at easing the entire patient journey starting from the time a tourist plans to access healthcare outside his home country. DXH.ae, the official health tourism website of Dubai, gets average of 10,000 visitors on a monthly basis looking for various types of information to help identify desired medical treatment.

The website also provides medical tourists the opportunity to compare and choose from over 400 healthcare packages that are designed to meet each individual’s requirement. The packages clearly outline the cost, inclusions, and exclusions. The comprehensive packages listed on the portal combine both leisure and health including, hotel accommodation, visa and insurance along with the selected medical treatments. The portal also offers options to request an appointment and 24X7 live chat.

To make the experience even more convenient, DXH also launched the mobile app, which is, designed to allow health tourists access to information about hospitals and clinics, doctors and DXH medical packages at any time. Medical tourists can download the DXH app from both Android and Apple stores.

Patients Wellbeing Taken into Consideration Every Step of the Way

Dubai’s strategy for health tourism is designed to keeps the interests of the patient at heart. It includes a charter of patient's rights and responsibilities with which medical tourists can understand their rights before arriving in Dubai for healthcare.

Additionally, DHA has created a medical complaints procedure for anyone with a medical related complain for health professional or facility in Dubai. The process has been designed to address issues based on the level of severity, and provide families with a clean timetable for resolution.

To facilitate the arrival of medical tourists, the DHA works with a third party company to provide coverage. This policy, according to the DHA, is an important "safety net" in the event of any unforeseen complications that may arise from treatment in the emirate.