Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) has announced that medical tourism sales in the UAE reached AED 12.1 billion in 2018, a growth of 5.5% compared to the previous year. A recent analysis by Dubai Chamber predicted that medical tourism sales in the UAE will continue to grow to AED 19.5 billion by 2023, a cumulative annual growth rate of 10.7%.

The analysis, based on recent data and statistics from Fitch Solutions and Euromonitor International, confirmed that medical tourism sales according to «Euromonitor International» achieved during the period 2014-2019 cumulative annual growth of about 11.9%, reflecting the attractiveness of medical tourism in the country .

According to a report by Fitch Solutions, the UAE's health sector spending reached AED 50.3 billion in 2018, a year-on-year growth of 5.4%. By public and private entities.

The analysis highlighted the rapid growth of the UAE's therapeutic healthcare sector and a number of vital indicators for the growth of the sector, with 154 hospitals in the UAE and more than 25,000 highly qualified physicians working in the UAE, mostly foreign residents. State hospitals performed 119,897 surgeries in 2018.This number increased at a cumulative annual rate of about 0.7% between 2013 and 2018.

He added that Dubai and Abu Dhabi ranked 16th and 25th respectively as the best global destinations for medical tourism in the world, according to the latest data of the medical tourism index.

For example, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) created the Dubai Health Experience as the region's first medical tourism portal.

The Dubai Chamber analysis reviewed the prospects for the future growth of the medical tourism sector based on the fact that the UAE is an attractive place for tourists coming for treatment from East Asia, the Middle East, Africa and European countries. These tourists choose the UAE because of the short waiting times in hospitals and the high quality of healthcare services. The analysis pointed out that the UAE, especially Dubai, has a good tourist infrastructure and hospitals provide cosmetic surgery, eye care, fertilization, artificial insemination, arterial care, prosthetic surgery, and other therapeutic services. The analysis highlighted a report by the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and the Dubai Health Experience (DHS), which reported an increase in the number of tourists arriving for treatment in Dubai from 107,000 in 2012 to 337,000 in 2018.The government expects to attract more than half a million tourists for treatment by 2020.

• Dubai and Abu Dhabi ranked 16th and 25th as the world's best medical tourism destinations.

• AED 50.3 billion expenditure of the health sector in the country last year.