The Tamil Nadu government plans to promote medical tourism in the state as a new strategy to make it a favoured tourist destination. The super specialty hospitals in the state are already attracting patients both from India and abroad.

The state has, to its credit, major hospitals like Apollo, Madras Medical Mission, Harvey's Super Speciality Hospital and Sankara Nethralaya hospitals in Chennai, and Arvind Eye Care and PSG Hospitals in Madurai and Coimbatore respectively, attracting patients from different parts of the country and abroad.

According to sources from the tourism department, the government will adopt the strategy, in order to achieve its primary objective of making the state a favoured domestic and international tourist destination. The super specialty hospitals in the state will provide quality services at affordable cost.

"Medical Tourism primarily revolves around patients and their families visiting the state hospitals. It also spans the medical colleges and other healthcare institutions of the state, which attract students and research scholars", an officer of the tourism department said.

For the promotion, tourism brochures will be specially designed in consultation with medical institutions with some useful tips on health care and the staff of the Tourism Department will be specially trained to attend to the specific needs of the people.

The ancient Indian healthcare system of Ayurveda, meditation and yoga will also be promoted in a major way to attract domestic and foreign tourists.

Besides, publicizing and marketing festivals like Pongal and the dance festivals at Mahabalipuram and Chidambaram are also part of the strategy. The harvest festival, 'Pongal', could well assume more significance as the state government recently rescheduled the Tamil calendar, announcing that Pongal will mark the birth of the New Year

The state's 11th Plan's goal is to "increase the number of tourist arrivals from 446 lakh in 2007 to 718 lakh by 2012," sources said. The plan outlay for Tourism is Rs 174.95 crore.