Medical tourism in Asia with a strategic focus on Iran: Challenges, policy gaps, and development pathways

Policy-making in the medical tourism sector has become essential for ensuring the growth, sustainability, and global competitiveness of this rapidly expanding industry. As medical tourism continues to expand worldwide, the formulation of clear and strategic policies plays a critical role in improving service quality, operational efficiency, and the attraction of international patients. Inadequate policy frameworks may result in inconsistent healthcare standards, infrastructural weaknesses, and unregulated pricing mechanisms, thereby limiting sectoral potential. Effective policies now demand a transition from passive regulation to active strategic governance, ensuring international trust and sustainable healthcare equity. This study adopts a strategic analytical approach using the Policy Mix framework to examine medical tourism in Asia, with a particular focus on Iran. The findings identify key regional challenges, including lack of service standardization, language barriers, legal inconsistencies, logistical complications, and insufficient insurance coverage. In Iran, additional barriers include a critical trust deficit stemming from the absence of Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation, economic constraints, administrative inefficiencies, socio-cultural limitations, infrastructural gaps, regulatory weaknesses, and deficiencies in digital information management systems. The study underscores the importance of mandatory international accreditation, infrastructural investment, transparent value-based pricing, transparent ethical guidelines, comprehensive legal frameworks, and coordinated policy strategies to strengthen competitiveness. Establishing an integrated and digitally driven policy framework is essential to enhance Iran’s position in the regional and global medical tourism market.