Mumbai: India’s ambition to emerge as a global hub for affordable healthcare is facing headwinds, with medical tourist arrivals plummeting amid geopolitical tensions, visa bottlenecks and intensifying competition from other Asian countries.
The number of foreigners visiting India for medical purposes has been declining for the past three years, and remains significantly below pre-Covid levels, according to government data.
Provisional data from the Bureau of Immigration show the arrival of medical tourists at 450,633 between January and November 2025. While the data for December aren’t available, the total for 2025 is expected to miss the previous year’s 644,387 arrivals by a wide margin.
In pre-pandemic 2019, as many as 697,453 foreigners visited India for medical purposes, the highest on record. This trend is not limited to medical tourism: the broader tourism sector has also recorded a fall in the number of foreign tourists visiting India.
While the West Asia conflict and subsequent travel disruptions may have further curtailed the arrivals since this March, healthcare industry executives say the impact would be temporary for medical tourism, one of India’s fastest-growing services segments.
They suggest that India market its high-tech, fast and reliable delivery of healthcare to international patients, instead of focusing solely on cost advantage, as well as address structural issues like visa delays to tap the full potential of the sector. “There has been a marginal slowdown in medical value travel due to prevailing travel restrictions on account of the evolving geopolitical environment, especially from war-affected countries,” said Apollo Hospitals managing director Suneeta Reddy.
‘Opportunities for India’
She predicted the impact to be temporary. Growth will come from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, alongside rising demand for complex procedures in oncology, cardiac sciences, transplants and neurosciences, Reddy said.
Abhay Soi, chairman and managing director of Max Healthcare Institute, said the West Asia developments could create opportunities for India, citing potential shifts in medical travel routes and professional mobility. “We haven’t seen disruptions so far and India could become a more attractive destination in the medium term,” he said. Frosty ties with Bangladesh—historically India’s largest source market—after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime in 2024 may have been one of the key reasons for the decline in medical tourist arrivals, say industry executives.
According to Bureau of Immigration data, 466,012 tourists from Bangladesh visited India, including for non-medical reasons, in 2025 till November. In calendar year 2024, more than 1.75 million Bangladeshis visited India, a significant number of them for medical purposes.
“The decline in the flow of patients from Bangladesh has been rapid in the last two years, though recent improvements in ties could reverse the trend during this year,” said Girdhar Gyani, director-general of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India.
Meanwhile, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia are posing stiff competition to India, Gyani said, adding: “A big correction necessary for India is to change the tag of a cheap healthcare provider. We should focus on high technology, fast and reliable delivery of healthcare.”
