India wants to make medical tourism（医疗旅游）a $9 billion industryby 2020
New Delhi (CNN) There are many reasonspeople go to India: the culture, the food, the weather. But in recent years,another factor drawing visitors is health care.
India's medical tourism industry couldgrow by 200% by 2020, hitting $9 billion, according to Ministry（部门）of Tourismfigures. As it tries to expand the industry, the country is trying to make iteasier for people to come for medical reasons. It's touting（招揽）advanced facilities, skilled doctors and low-cost treatment but alsotraditional practices such as yoga and Ayurveda（印度韦达养生学）.
"India can provide medical andhealth care of international standards at low costs," Tourism Minister KJAlphons said in written response to a query（质疑，问询）inthe Lower House of Parliament（国会大厦）."India excels in（擅长） the state of the art（最先进的）medical facilities（医疗设施）, reputed（名誉良好的）healthcare professionals, quality nursing facilities（疗养设施） andtraditional healthcare therapies（疗法）."
In2015, India ranked as the third most popular destination for medical tourism,when the industry was worth $3 billion. The number of foreign tourists cominginto the country on medical visas sat at nearly 234,000 that year.
By2017, the number of arrivals more than doubled to 495,056, government figuresshow.
Visarules have also been changed to encourage applications.
"Thee-touristvisa（旅游电子签）regime（管理体制） has been expanded to include medical visitsas well. Medical and medical attendant visas have been introduced to ease thetravel process of medical tourists. The maximum duration of stay in India underthe e-medical visa is a longer duration of six months," Alphons said.
Still,it's important to be cautious when it comes to predictions, said JohannaHanefeld, an associateprofessor（副教授） of health policy and systems（卫生政策研究） at the London School of Hygiene（卫生）and Tropical Medicine（热带医学）.
"Oneof the challenges is that the figures cited are based on the private sector.It's private individuals paying private providers. Any type of figure tends tobe relatively speculative（推测性的）. The initial wave ofpredictions was business analysis and research and was based on the thinkingthat people go on cost and quality alone. And essentially being a world withdisappearing borders, this was an area of growth," Hanefeld said.
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