In answering this question, first of all, we think that to specify what is not health tourism would be useful. Health tourism is not a vacation package for the doctors or not a fun activity for people who like to visit hospitals. In fact, although it is not possible to qualify as tourism completely, many aspects and features of tourism are in question in terms of health tourism to a certain extent.

If it is needed to express simply, health tourism can be defined as travelling of a person outside the region lived in order to receive health service. In this regard, it may include a car trip of two hundred miles you make to your parent's place of birth also, a plane trip you make to reach an exotic culture that you do not know anything about to the other side of the world. Health tourism for people with no insurance or in need of medical procedures not covered by insurance offers an attractive alternative in terms of increasing health care costs.

Health tourism has been used for optional procedures such as cosmetic dentistry and plastic surgery applications (the procedures not considered in the essential requirements) from past to present. Countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico meet the demands and the needs of North American that gives importance to their beauty and thinks they need an aesthetic intervention for many years. However, non-optional procedures such as knee replacement and hip prosthesis, cardiac procedures and neuro-surgical applications are also begun to be preferred in the last few years and it is expected that the center of gravity in health tourism will shift to serious procedure like this from seemingly "insignificant" demands such the perfect smile in the close future.