Ministry of Ayush inks MoU with ITDC for promotion of medical value travel

Ministry of Ayush and ITDC have joined forces for working together to promote medical value travel in Ayurveda and other traditional medicine systems.

The Ministry of Ayush has signed an agreement with India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) to promote medical value travel (MVT)in Ayurveda and other traditional medicine systems.

Ministry of Ayush tweet reads, "A memorandum of understanding was signed between Ministry of Ayush and India Tourism Development Corporation today. MoA and ITDC will work together for the promotion of Medical Value Travel in Ayurveda and other traditional systems of medicines."

Director, Ministry of Ayush, Dr Shashi Ranjan Vidyarthi and Director, Commercial and Marketing, India Tourism Development Corporation Ltd. Piyush Tiwari signed the MoU in presence of Pramod Kumar Pathak, special secretary, MoA and other senior officials of Ayush and ITDC.

The implementation and progress of the MoU will be monitored by a Joint Working Group (JWG) co-chaired by representatives from MoA and ITDC. The JWG will also identify the best practices adopted by Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand etc. to promote themselves as a preferred destination for medical value travel.

According to the MoU, the Ministry of Ayush will provide training to the officials of ITDC to sensitize them about the medical value of travel in Ayurveda and other traditional systems of medicine. It will identify tourist circuits, where there is immense scope to promote medical value travel in Ayurveda and other traditional systems of medicine and provide all the technical know-how from time to time to ITDC.

ITDC on the suggestion of the Ministry of Ayush will include historical heritage sites of Indian systems of medicine in tourist destinations under "Knowledge Tourism" and may develop films/literature useful to tourists. It will explore establishing Ayurveda and Yoga centres in the hotels run by ITDC and will organize sensitization workshops in collaboration.

In the recently concluded First Health Working Group meeting of the G20 India presidency at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, G20 delegates deliberated on opportunities and challenges to promote medical value travel in India which has seen significant growth in India in recent years. According to the report ‘The Global Wellness Economy: Looking beyond COVID’ by the Global Wellness Institute (GWI), the Global Wellness economy will grow at 9.9% annually. The ayush-based healthcare & Wellness economy is estimated to grow to $70 billion by 2025.

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