Health Tourism: The New Trend in Brand Ayurveda

March 28, 2007

(Ayushveda.com) - Ayurveda, the five millennia ancient Indian medicine relating to natural treatment with herbs, has today become more of a brand than a therapy. The phrase ‘brand Ayurveda’ can be very aptly applied to what this Indian form of alternative medicine is fast become relegated into.

Consider this: today Ayurveda is being heavily marketed in India by means of various commercial and patented herbal products which are marketed on a global scale via the Internet. There are thousands of spas and resorts that perform healing on the standards of Ayurveda, as laid down five thousand years ago in the Charaka Samhita and the Sushruta Samhita, the two oldest treatises available on this therapeutic form. The very mention of the word ‘Ayurveda’ today evokes a curiosity all over the world; and people are joining in to try out what this form of medicine is all about.

However, the Indian government has woken up too late to cash in on the vast potential its own Ayurveda has to earn a fortune in terms of foreign exchange. Until now, Ayurvedic products were sold over the counter at local shops at very low prices. But with globalization, there is a vast foreign market out there, waiting to be explored. This process of exploration has already begun, with India promoting heavily the concept of health tourism.

It can be quite truthfully said that the concept of health tourism is a direct offshoot of the brand Ayurveda. In the southwestern Indian state of Kerala, there are several Ayurvedic spas and health resorts, which are catering specially to a foreign clientele. These places are run by local people of Kerala, and have on their staff expert Ayurvedic doctors from all over the country, who have graduated in the B.A.M.S (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery) degree. They undertake a careful healing program for their patrons, who visit from all over the world.

The first thing that works in favor of health tourism is the lush idyll of the state of Kerala, which is called by the poets as ‘God’s Own Country’. The nature of the state itself is enough to make a person feel rejuvenated. Apart from that, the Ayurvedic spas and resorts are located in serene places where they can let go of their materialistic worries. Depending on the program, the tourists stay in these resorts for a week, fortnight, month or even more. Here they are introduced to a very different kind of lifestyle, in which herbal treatments through Ayurveda and exercise therapies through Yoga are employed, along with other techniques such as Praanayama, aromatherapy, music therapy and several other naturopathy techniques.

The health tourism market in India is growing by leaps and bounds. In the next five years, Kerala expects to attract about 100,000 foreign tourists in their Ayurvedic centers. Already, the state is attracting 15,000 tourists on an annual basis, and this number is bound to increase with the new policies of standardization of Ayurvedic medicines and health centers as chalked out by the National Accreditation Board of Hospitals of India.