To mention just a few characteristics, it offers an excellent quality, low price medical services, well-developed infrastructure and English-speaking workforce. With the help from the government, this Baltic country is quickly approaching its goal.
Thanks to the support of European Union, from 2007 to 2014 Lithuania’s medical sector experienced a renaissance. The infrastructure was renewed, clinics received up-to-date equipment and innovative treatment solutions. This is one of the reasons why Lithuania became one of the TOP 10 world’s best countries for medical tourism in 2009, and is still among the countries with the best medical care today.
The expansion of the market accelerated in 2011, when the main tourism promotion efforts were put on the health sector, and the first web pages presenting treatment opportunities in Lithuania went live. A year later, Medical Tourism Association “Medical Lithuania” was established and a cluster of medical tourism started forming. Since then, tourism management organisations and private companies as Health Tourism Lithuania, have worked closely with national tour operators, spas, hotels and clinics to provide an outstanding experience for international patients.
According to an award-winning global keynote speaker Dr Prem Jagyasi, another reason why Lithuania has gained more international recognition in the field of medical tourism than its neighbors Latvia and Estonia is the enthusiasm. In fact, National Tourism Development Programme for 2014–2020 ranked health tourism among priority tourism categories. As indicated in a Feasibility Study by the Ernst & Young, Lithuania seeks 15% annual growth of the number of medical tourists arriving in Lithuania and being among the TOP 5 countries in Europe in terms of the number of medical tourists per capita.
More importantly, the study shows that Lithuania has the potential to achieve the ambitious objectives and facilitate infrastructure suitable for large flows of tourists. The country also has more physicians and inpatient beds at hospitals.
The study forecasts that Lithuania could attract approx. 292.000 medical tourists by 2022, mostly coming from Russia, Germany, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. This would create the basis for Lithuania to become the fastest growing Baltic-Nordic medical tourism destination.
