Study on the Resources and Function Zoning of Medical Tourism in China
中国医疗旅游资源及功能区划研究

The globalization of healthcare has given rise to a new form of tourism that is commonly known as medical tourism. When medical tourism is booming in the world, its development in China is still in its infancy. Medical tourism resources are the foundation of the medical tourism growth. Based on the analysis of research progresses on medical tourism resources, this article has made a further study on the medical tourism resource types, including medical tourism resources relying on special weather conditions, the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine resources, well-known traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese famous physicians and modern high-tech medical technology. On the basis of the geographical distribution features of the medical tourism resources, Chinese medical tourism could be divided into four medical tourism functional regions, including the eastern modern medical tourist region, the western medicine treatment tourist region, central medical shopping tourist region, and health and leisure tourist region in the Northeast. Eastern modern medical tourist region is the major exploitation area, and needs to make good use of regional advantages both on tourism resources and medical resources, establishing a medical tourism resource system composed of hospitals, clinics, private medical tourism organizations and public medical tourism organizations, cultivating convalescence holiday travel brands and improving the core competitiveness of medical tourism. The western medicine treatment tourist region should design traditional Chinese medicine treatment products and establish a TCM rehabilitation tourist area, focusing on the tourists aiming at TCM diagnosis, rehabilitation therapy and body slimming. Central medical shopping tourist region should consider the medical shopping and sightseeing experience as the main function, while health and leisure tourism region in Northeast should creat spa, forest and coastal leisure products and give full play to the brand effects of festival tourism. Finally, we have discussed the problems and research directions of the medical tourism research in the hope of promoting the development of medical tourism and expanding Chinese medical tourism market.