On this week’s We Hear, for our next trip let’s explore Dubai. Medical tourism is as old as the Sumerians. Today, people can go to Costa Rica for dental work, Brazil for facelifts, and Malaysia for tummy tucks.
And while you can still go to Tijuana for a kickin’ party weekend, some viagra, and a joint, today the city has been experiencing a serious facelift into the uptick in Americans heading down for stem-cell treatments and cosmetic surgery. According to the medical and health travel website, Patients Beyond Borders, about a million and a half Americans are now heading overseas for surgery annually. And today, it’s a fifteen billion dollar a year business.
Dubai Medical Tourism Photo Gallery
The next big destination for medical tourism is Dubai. The city’s leadership has launched a dedicated visitors portal with the aim of increasing the number of international medical tourists to 500,000 by 2020, offering travel discounts and specials. All of this is happening at an exciting time for Dubai’s tourism sector this UAE destination was the only one from the region to be named a top travelers choice destination of 2016, by Trip Advisor, coming in at number one in the region and thirteenth in the world. TripAdvisor reminds travelers that this is a city of superlatives.
Dubai is home to the world’s tallest building, the only seven star hotel, the largest artificial islands, and the largest natural flower gardens. And Dubai really has so much to offer for every type of traveler, from the luxury seeker to the thrill seeking adventurer, check out the city’s urban zipline, the XLine, that begins above the downtown area which suspends riders 300 feet above downtown and runs more than 1,800 feet long ending at the top of the Dubai Mall rooftop. The 40 second trip allows daredevils to traverse Dubai at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour.
Dubai is also targeting families with a 1 billion dollar Marvel and Cartoon Network themed amusement park set to open this coming August and Legoland and SixFlags are in the works as well. Londoners will be excited to hear that one of their most popular cafes is heading to Dubai. The UK based Keery brothers will open an outpost of their Cereal Killer Cafe in this exciting city later this year. That’s it for this week’s We Hear. Be sure to catch us on our Roku and Apple TV blogs. Travel Savvy and see you next time!.
