Interrogating medical tourism: Ireland, abortion, and mobility rights

Medical tourism in Ireland, like in many Western states, is built around assumptions about individual agency, choice, possibility, and mobility. One specific form of medical tourism—the flow of women from Ireland traveling in order to secure an abortion—disrupts and contradicts these assumptions. One legacy of the bitter, contentious political and legal battles surrounding abortion in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s has been securing the right of mobility for all pregnant Irish citizens to cross international borders to secure an abortion. However, these mobility rights are contingent upon nationality, social class, and race, and they have enabled successive Irish governments to avoid any responsibility for providing safe, legal, and affordable abortion services in Ireland. Nearly twenty years after the X case discussed here, the pregnant female body moving over international borders—entering and leaving the state—is still interpreted as problematic and threatening to the Irish state.     

建设国际旅游岛背景下海南城乡一体化模式探讨

国际旅游岛是海南发展的大战略。当前,在建设国际旅游岛的背景下,需要整合城乡旅游资源,实现城乡协调发展。本文分析了海南城乡一体化的现实需求和国际旅游岛框架下推进城乡一体化的突出矛盾,在此基础上,提出把经济一体化、社会一体化、行政一体化作为推进海南城乡一体化的具体思路。     

“Almost invisible scars”: medical tourism to Brazil

Along with a handful of other nations in the developing world, Brazil has emerged as a top destination for medical tourism. Drawing on the author's ethnographic fieldwork in plastic surgery wards, this article examines diverse factors - some explicitly promoted in medical marketing and news sources, others less visible - contributing to Brazil's international reputation for excellence in cosmetic plastic surgery. Brazil's plastic surgery residency programs, some of which are housed within its public health system, attract overseas surgeons, provide ample opportunities for valuable training in cosmetic techniques, and create a clinical environment that favors experimentation with innovative techniques. Many graduates of these programs open private clinics that, in turn, attract overseas patients. High demand for Brazilian plastic surgery also reflects an expansive notion of female health that includes sexual realization, mental health, and cosmetic techniques that manage reproduction. Medical tourism is sometimes represented as being market-driven: patients in wealthier nations travel to obtain quality services at lower prices. This article ends by reflecting on how more complex local and transnational dynamics also contribute to demand for elective medical procedures such as cosmetic surgery.     

International Aid,Local Ownership,and Survival: Development and Higher Education in Rural Haiti

This case study of Rural Haitian University highlights the complexities and consequences that may arise from a combination of unpredictable streams of international funding, financial vulnerability of communities, and the strategies that civic leaders employ to mobilize resources. We argue that the encounter sketched here of local vulnerability following protracted social conflict and a major natural disaster with the international aid machinery has fostered a cycle of dependence/survival strategies in the higher education institution we examine and undermined its ability to achieve its core mission. More generally, we contend that in situations of extreme poverty and heavy international donor influence, “local ownership” may become synonymous with “local survival” unless predicated on the availability of local capacities and site-specific distribution of international resources. We propose one modest initiative to reduce the university’s dependence on international funding through the development of a sustainable tourism enterprise as a way to nurture local ownership and social capital.     

阿联酋旅游业发展模式研究

为减少对石油收入的依赖,阿联酋自20世纪八十年代起实施经济多元化战略。其中,发展旅游业是其实施经济多元化战略的重要一环。各酋长国根据自身特点制定旅游发展战略,并采取各种措施积极营销,推出旅游精品,吸引国内外游客,形成市场需求国际化、投资主体多元化、以及豪华、奢侈、免税等特点。旅游业在阿联酋经济中已占据越来越重要的地位。本文通过对阿联酋旅游业发展历程的分析和总结,认为阿联酋旅游业以发展城市游为主,主要分为"国际驿站游"、"文化游"、"节庆游"、"休闲度假游"、"购物游"、"体育赛事游"、"公务游"、"城市观光游"、"事件游"、"游轮游"等十种模式。     

Crime and International Tourism

Using a panel data set of European countries, this paper investigates the impact of crime on international tourism. Violent crimes are negatively associated with incoming international tourists and international tourism revenue indicating that international tourists consider the risk of victimization when choosing a location to visit. This impact is smaller in magnitude in Southern European countries with a coastline which are generally more attractive tourist destinations in terms of sea tourism, suggesting that victimization risk and attractiveness of the destination may be substitutable traits.     

Migradollars and development: a reconsideration of the Mexican case

"Economic arguments, quantitative data, and ethnographic case studies are presented to counter popular misconceptions about international labor migration and its economic consequences in Mexico. The prevailing view is that Mexico-U.S. migration discourages autonomous economic growth within Mexico, at both the local and national levels, and that it promotes economic dependency. However, results estimated from a multiplier model suggest that the inflow of migradollars stimulates economic activity, both directly and indirectly, and that it leads to significantly higher levels of employment, investment, and income within specific communities and the nation as a whole. The annual arrival of around $2 billion migradollars generates economic activity that accounts for 10 percent of Mexico's output and 3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product."     

Surgeon and Safari: producing valuable bodies in Johannesburg

This essay explores how concepts of value and cheapness circulate around the bodies of clients of the Johannesburg-based cosmetic surgery tourism company Surgeon and Safari. I show how the production of a luxurious experience and the mitigation of risk take place within a transnational network enabled by the presence of medical tourism in multiple locales. By placing Surgeon and Safari's activities within the context of the neoliberalization of health care in South Africa, I explore how the division between private versus public health spaces functions as both a technique of valuing clients' bodies and as a process of racialization.     

新加坡医疗体系优势及其对上海的启示

新加坡在医疗保健领域取得令人信服的成就,发展出三级医疗服务体系、3P医疗机构体系、六大区域医疗集团、四级病房体系和3M医疗保险体系,成效显著,赢得本国民众和国际社会的高度评价。上海可借鉴新加坡医疗保健领域取得的成功经验,组建区域性医疗联盟,加速医疗信息化进程,引进国际医学院,适度发展国际医疗和私人医疗,加速推进上海国际医学园区建设。     

Balinese cultural identity and global tourism: the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park

ABSTRACT

The island of Bali has been inextricably bound up with the tourism industry. This article examines the dynamic Balinese cultural identity and its ever changing relationship with tourism in the age of globalism through the analysis of a case study: the construction of the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park (between 1993–2018), containing an enormous statue of the Hindu God Wisnu mounting the magical bird Garuda. The park and statue can be seen as a new cultural landmark for the Indonesian nation and for the Balinese tourism industry. However, the case study of the park also shows how Bali has changed its role within the Indonesian archipelago since the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998 while dealing with new challenges of global tourism. Representations of a Balinese cultural identity have evolved from national, top-down level constructions of ‘cultural tourism’ into a global tourist destination through hosting international events at the park.     

Negotiating the “Global” within the Global Playscapes of Mount Everest*

Within the anthropology of tourism, “tourist” and “local” are often used to conceptualize social relations constitutive of international tourism, where “First World” mobile subjects visit stationary “Third World” “Others.” Globalization, as both discourse and condition, is changing the contours and conceptualizations of tourist spaces. In this paper, I show how “the global” is negotiated by different subjects, and how recreational mountain climbers from Nepal negotiate their identities as “locals” as well as global, mobile, travel subjects within “the global playscapes” of Himalayan mountaineering. I suggest that the question of who can be a tourist within a globalizing world should be closely examined.     

Modeling the number of Chinese outbound visitors using multiple regression

China's tourism foreign communication expands inceasingly,which has become an important part of the international tourism exchange and driving force.With the sustainable development of Chinese tourism industry,outbound tourism is a kind of relative high domestic tourism consumption behavior.     

Studying multinational migrations,speaking back to migration theory

A growing body of migration scholarship has highlighted the inadequacies of a single‐origin‐single‐destination model for thinking about international migration in our globalizing world. Several terms – onward, stepwise, serial, secondary, triangular, multiple, and transit migration – have been coined to describe these multiple moves within a single migratory lifetime, but the lack of consensus on the terminology to describe these migrations is indicative of the lack of theoretical clarity on this emergent phenomenon. We therefore propose to introduce a new umbrella term, ‘multinational migrations', to capture the varied movements of international migrants across more than one overseas destination with significant time spent in each country. The articles presented here bring together researchers investigating multinational migrations across a range of migrant categories and between various migration hubs. They highlight how individual imaginations, aspirations, capabilities and subjectifications interact with multinational migration infrastructures (in the domains of education, tourism, labour, and citizenship) to lead to the adoption of complex multinational migration trajectories.     

Relations between strangers: cycles of structure and meaning in tourist systems

Tourism is a paradoxical human activity–a supposedly ‘smokeless industry’ that produces littered beaches, a cornucopia to local economics that gives rise to inflation and embittered natives, a profitable enterprise that often requires governmental subsidy. It is also a major social and economic phenomenon: witness 280 million international tourists and 180 billion dollars in expenditures in 1979 (Waters, 1979). For the population of many societies, it is a primary source of work; for others it is a primary outlet for leisure. An understanding of the modern era is incomplete without understanding the social processes of tourism. This paper speculates about cycles of structure and myth in tourism development. The goal is an integrated theory of tourism, based on empirical evidence, amenable to test, and permitting the prediction of future behaviour. The paper is divided into several sections. First, we briefly review some earlier analytic frameworks used for understanding tourism. We draw upon these frameworks to develop an integrated explanation of the behaviour of tourists, the evolution of the tourist industry, and the consequences of tourism for host and guest populations. Second, our attention is devoted to structural and symbolic factors shaping relations between strangers. Such relations, we argue, are the engine of change in tourism. Third, we present a typology of the social cycles involved in tourism. We attempt to describe which elements of the social order are likely to respond in predictable patterns to tourism development; speculate on the form these responses might take and provide a set of hypothetical curves for potential indicator measures. We close by suggesting some theoretical and practical implications of our discussion.     

Alliances Across Ideologies: Networking with NGOs in a Tourism Dispute in Northern Bali

This paper explores how local actors form alliances and join networks with (inter-)national NGOs working on religious, political and environmental issues in a dispute over tourism development in northern Bali. All of these actors construct a particular concept of landscape which serves their respective goals to contest or defend the planned large-scale tourism projects. Three of these conceptual framings are identified as playing a major role in the conflict: (1) a spiritual Hindu-Balinese perspective mobilised by tourism protesters and NGOs; in alliance with (2) views on landscape based on sustainability and conservation powerfully represented by international NGOs; clashing with (3) a material and economic view of landscape by international investors, who consider land primarily as a commodity generating economic value. These three contrasting views and resulting networks provide an instrument of moral and political pressure for the contending parties in this conflict over natural resources and tourism development.     

两岸旅游类高校人才培养模式的比较——以高雄餐旅大学与南京旅游职业学院为例

江苏旅游职业教育集团通过考察高雄餐旅大学，对台湾旅游职业教育发展模式有了一定的了解，并从中获得了很多经验和启示。南京旅游职业学院作为大陆知名的旅游高校，其人才培养模式与高雄餐旅大学有类似之处，但也存在一定的差距。通过对两者的比较，笔者认为以南京旅游职业学院为代表的大陆旅游高校应进一步改革创新，加快与国际旅游职业教育接轨的步伐。     

Medical tourism: reverse subsidy for the elite

The medical tourism sector in India has attracted global attention, given its phenomenal growth in the past decade. India is second only to Thailand in the number of medical tourists that it attracts every year. Estimates indicate that the medical tourism market in India could grow from $310 million in 2005 to $2 billion by 2012. These figures are significant when contrasted with India's overall health care expenditure - $10 billion in the public sector and $50 billion in the private sector. Factors that have contributed to this growth include the relative proficiency in English among health care providers and the cost effectiveness of medical procedures in India. Generally, most procedures in Indian hospitals cost a quarter (or less) of what they would cost in developed countries. The expansion of medical tourism has also been fueled by the growth of the private medical sector in India, a consequence of the neglect of public health by the government. India has one of the poorest records in the world regarding public financing and provisioning of health care. A growing driver of medical tourism is the attraction of facilities in India that offer access to assisted reproductive care technologies. Ironically, this is in sharp contrast with the acute neglect of the health care needs of Indian women. The Indian government is vigorously promoting medical tourism by providing tax concessions and by creating an environment enabling it to thrive. However, there is a distinct disjunction between the neglect of the health care needs of ordinary Indians and public policy that today subsidizes the health care of wealthy foreigners.     

Exploring the co-movements between COVID-19 pandemic and international air traffic: A global perspective based on wavelet analysis

The travel and tourism industry was one of the fastest-growing industries before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, to avoid COVID-19 spread, the government authorities imposed strict lockdown and international border restrictions except for some emergency international flights that badly hit the travel and tourism industry. The study explores the nexus between international air departures and the COVID-19 pandemic in this strain. We use a novel wavelet coherence approach to dissect the lead and lag relationships between international flight departures and COVID-19 deaths from January 2020 to September 2020 (COVID-19 first wave period). The results reveal that international flights cause the spread of COVID-19 spread during May 2020 to June 2020 worldwide. The overall findings suggest asymmetries between daily international flight departures and COVID-19 deaths globally at different time-frequency periods due to uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will be conducive for the policymakers to control the upsurge of COVID-19 spread worldwide.     

Differences between medical and recreational cannabis

Every state has its own process for regulating legal cannabis, but we have been particularly interested in Massachusetts, which has a carefully structured process for regulation of both medical (established in 2013) and the recently approved recreational dispensaries — we visited a medical dispensary recently (see ADAW, June 24).