Meraas delves into medical tourism in Dubai

Move is part of Dubai’s initiative to support industry.

Dubai expects to attract more than half a million medical tourists by 2020. Jeff Topping / The National

Meraas has set up a health care division in an attempt to attract more medical tourists to Dubai.

The property company announced on Satruday that the new division would support the emirate’s bid to attract 500,000 medical tourists to Dubai by 2020.

The private company said that its new division would focus on areas of high need such as orthopaedics, cardiology, paediatrics and family medicine. It did not say how much it planned to spend on building or acquiring new hospitals and clinics.

“We aim to build an all-inclusive portfolio of health care facilities and provide a comprehensive range of services within one truly integrated informatics system, powered by cutting-edge technology,” said Hamad Al Matrooshi, the senior vice president of health care at Meraas.

Dubai first launched its medical tourism strategy in 2012.

In October, Layla Al Marzouqi, the director of health regulation at Dubai Health Authority, said that 16 hospitals provided treatment to 256,097 international and domestic medical tourists in the emirate in the first half of this year, generating a combined revenue of Dh1 billion.

The statistics put Dubai on track to achieve its target of attracting half a million medical tourists this year, five years ahead of schedule.

“We expect that number to double when we collect data from across all the 30 hospitals and other facilities at the end of the year,” she said. “We expect to increase the number of medical tourists by 12 to 13 per cent every year.”

In recent years, Meraas has invested in a number of projects aimed at drawing investment into Dubai.

The company was working on Florida-style theme parks on the Sheikh Zayed Road aimed at attracting 6.7 million visitors in 2017 before being floated as a theme park company, Dubai Parks & Resorts, on the DFM last year.

Meraas last week launched Meraas Hotels & Resorts, which it said would introduce operate and manage different brands of hotels.

Meraas is also developing a Dh6 billion Bluewaters Island project near Jumeirah Beach Residence, including a Dh1 billion Dubai Eye Ferris wheel, which it hopes will attract more than 3 million visitors a year.