We believe that, as we age, we can continue to learn, grow and develop in new ways.

Throughout the years, the world and European health tourism industry have been recording significant demographic changes, respectively a highly growing number of senior tourists who belong to the so-called Third age group of tourists. Modern senior health tourists have significantly higher expectations than ever before when undertaking a journey, and want a more diversified, top quality health service offer, adapted to their preferences and likings, which will enable them to achieve experience and value for money. One of the specific forms of tourism, which has been developing significantly over the years, is health tourism, towards services of which senior tourists are showing growth attention, all with a goal of improving their health and prolonging their life expectancy. Turkey, as a tourist destination with a very long tradition of providing health tourism services, has developed significantly over the years and is tracking contemporary trends on the senior health tourism as a destination of health and well- being.

Aging of the population increases health care spending as the use of medical care services by adults rises with age. Accordingly, the rising proportion of older people puts upward pressure on overall health care spending in the developed world. Thus, policymakers redesign health care systems and seek alternative solutions. Health Tourism is becoming a high trend for the last decades as an inexpensive and effective way of controlling future health care costs. Turkey has been becoming an attractive country for health tourism, especially for elderly tourism, thanks to its advanced healt-care facilities with high-tech, lower prices, and wellness tourism opportunities as well as favorable climate conditions and rich heritage of history and culture.

Today, four important factors stand out in shaping healthcare policies all over the world. These are elderly populations, chronic diseases, care and treatment costs that are all increasing, and the shortage in human resources in the healthcare sector. Chronologically, WHO set the age of old age at 65. The most important reason why elderly people go to other countries for health reasons is that health services in the countries where they live are expensive, there are long waiting times, some services such as dental treatment are excluded from health insurance coverage, out-of-pocket payment shares are high and some health areas that require advanced expertise such as oncology, cardiology, orthopedics are quite costly in their own countries. Turkey has the potential to challenge competing countries not only with its geographical location, but also with its high quality compared to other countries, the delivery of low-cost healthcare services, with its many accredited institutions, private group hospitals that are specialized in oncology, ophthalmology and etc., and the staff of physicians specialized in advanced health technology. One of the most important reasons for the patients in preferring Turkey is the fact that they can receive high quality services with more affordable prices in Turkey compared to the countries where they live.

The reason behind the citizens of the USA, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and France going to other countries for healthcare reasons is the fact that health care can be very expensive in their home countries. When U.S. and European cost criteria are taken to compare for the same intervention or treatment; it is found that while the cost in Turkey is around 50-65% cheaper compared to the ones in USA, it is 35-60% cheaper compared to the services offered in European countries. One of the most important triggers and competitive factors in the growth of the health tourism market is the accreditation of health tourism service institutions by internationally accepted organizations. In 1999, Joint Commission International, also called JCI, launched international accreditation services in the United States. As of the end of 2018, approximately 1041 hospitals and clinics in the world have JCI certificates.