In a survey of medical professionals in Dubai Healthcare City, the most popular reported treatment for medical tourists is for infertility.
The survey was commissioned by Dubai Healthcare City using respondents from its 120 medical facilities. The data collected represents a six-month period, beginning January 2014. The sample size was weighted for facilities that offer clinical services so that it was representative of the medical tourism profile.
DHCC surveyed doctors on their views, observations and expectations of medical tourism in Dubai. 48 % of medical tourists come primarily from the GCC; 32 % cent from the wider Arab World; 26 % from Eastern and Western Europe; and 23 % from Asia. For those travelling from Saudi Arabia or Oman, Lebanon or Egypt, the UAE is a natural choice: it is close to home, and there are linguistic and cultural similarities that help foster better understanding between them and their doctors.
The three most popular procedures are: first, infertility treatments, second, cosmetic treatments, and third, dental.
Doctors say that 89% of medical tourists go to Dubai for quality of care; 62% for the city’s experienced doctors, while 48% go for the availability of specialist treatments, and 36% because Dubai is nearby; the figures combined show that there are often several reasons not just one. Care has to be taken with these results as this is the doctor view of what they think the reasons for going to Dubai are, not what the medical tourists actually say themselves- and accounts for the weight put on experienced doctors.
Doctors think that the key concerns of medical tourists are cost (32%), post treatment care (23%) and accommodation/ travel (16%).
Marwan Abedin of DHCC comments: “As a strategic priority for DHCC, we are committed to increasing the flow of medical tourists visiting Dubai. We can achieve this with regular feedback and cooperation among our partner clinics and hospitals as well as medical tourism agencies.”

The Dubai Health Authority aims to attract 500,000 medical tourists a year by 2020 in an ambitious strategy that will include building 22 new hospitals and the employment of more than 3,800 private-sector healthcare staff in the next few years. In 2012, 107,000 medical tourists visited the emirate, generating Dh652 million. By 2016, the authority expects that number to increase to 170,000, with revenues of about Dh1.1billion.