A RE-EXAMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOURISM AND HEALTHCARE

Globalization of healthcare services in recent years has increased the importance of medical tourism activities. In this respect, governments increase their own investments and stimulate the growth of medical tourism sector, one of the primary sources of foreign exchange, for improving the national economy. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the international tourism and development of the healthcare sector. We employ the causality test introduced by Hacker and Hatemi (2006) to test this causality relationship for Australia, Canada, Hungary, India, South Korea, and Turkey. The study concludes that direction of the causal relationship in India moves from the healthcare sector to tourism. On the other hand, South Korea exhibits a bi-directional relationship. It was not possible to draw conclusions about causal relationships between healthcare and tourism in Australia, Canada, Hungary and Turkey.