Inbound Medical Tourism Or Export Of Medical Services: Which Market Do We Need?

The Regionological Journal of Pskov. 2021. Vol. 17. No. 3. P. 18–33.

Tarasenko E. A., Dvoryashina M. M.

The purpose of the paper is to consider development barriers and tools for targeted
support and stimulation of the growth of this sector of the economy, as well as the
peculiarities of the impact of the pandemic COVID-19 on the growth and development
prospects of the Russian inbound medical tourism market. Methodology. The article is based
on a qualitative sociological study conducted in November 2019 — December 2020, with
focus groups and expert interviews method usage. In total, there were conducted 8 expert
interviews and 4 focus groups. Findings. The launch of the federal project "Development of
the export of medical services" within the framework of the federal program "Development
o f healthcare", the creation of the Moscow medical cluster, the development of regional
markets for inbound medical tourism are considered as institutional measures that can
facilitate the target audience's access to the resources of Russian medical clinics. The value
of results. As part of the research, the author's for the first time have introduced the analysis
o f the first results of inbound medical tourism development in 2017-2020 in Russia. The
differences between the export of medical services and the market of inbound medical
tourism were revealed. The authors put forward the thesis about the export of medical
services as the first phase of the development of the market of inbound medical tourism.
This analysis identifies areas for further research.

Keywords: regional markets, pandemic COVID-19, inbound medical tourism, export of medical services

Publication based on the results of: Evolution of compulsory health insurance institutions (2021)