Medical Tourism in Bali: A Critical Assessment on the Potential and Strategy for its Development

As a cultural-based tourism destination in the world, the phrase medical tourism seems to be a new form of tourism for Bali. Meanwhile, medical tourism global market reached USD 439 billion (GHCR, 2017) and made it as one of the fastest growing tourism market in the world. The study aimed at identifying the potency of Bali as a medical tourism destination, analyzing the SWOT, formulating the strategies for its development and prioritizing which strategies to be implemented.

The method used were interpretative analysis, IFE, EFE and SWOT to formulate strategies and QSPM to prioritize which alternative strategies to be implemented.

The results confirmed that Bali has the potential to be a medical tourism destination as there are medical providers, competent doctors and paramedics, unique medical tourism products and increased in numbers of patients coming to Bali. The questionnaires also referred that 84% respondents stated that Bali is potential to be a medical tourism destination. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of medical tourism development in Bali are similar to other established medical tourism destinations in Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and India). The only difference is that Indonesian government has not taken any roles in the medical tourism development at any stage. Result also showed that medical tourism development strategy in Bali has to be intensive by doing product development, market penetration and market development.

Keywords: Medical tourism, Potency, Development Strategy, SWOT, QSPM.