hyderabad health care and tourism have long been fuelling service sector growth in the country the benefits from a synergy of the two sectors are too good to be ignored with the administration and corporate hospitals taking an initiative to woo foreignersseveral steps were initiated by the government to tap the citys potential for health tourism a recent heritage health festival brought together scores of representatives to discuss marketing hyderabad as a medical huba number of resorts are being planned across the state to serve as rejuvenation centres for tourists coming for treatment tourism secretary chandana khan told the times of india two resorts one each in visakhapatnam and tirupati will come up in the next five months those seeking medical attention can combine their trip with visiting tourist destinations too apart from treatment the visitors can relax meditate and receive ayurvedic massages she saidin addition a delegation of tourism officials recently visited dubai for hardselling the greet and treat programme under which the government has proposed a series of packages that includes treatment plus holiday resort and rejuvenation centres khan saidbut to sustain this momentum it is important to put in place world class facilities health tourism can bring in substantial revenue if we provide a much cleaner city hasslefree airport handling and mega international events in health it art culture and fashions apollo hospitals general manager international healthcare radhe mohan saidthe city has about 10 large hospitals offering world class facilities for patients the average cost of treatment here is just onethirds of that in the gulf or western countries naturally many people would be interested in coming to hyderabad he saidmany international flights from the gulf countries connect to hyderabad so the city gets sizeable patients from these countries over the years lots of families from here have settled in the gulf and they prefer to come to hyderabad for treatment since it is cheap and they also get a chance to meet their families and friends he explainedbesides the government is also promoting various other forms of indian medicine a keralabased group has opened its branches at nine centres in ap for ayurvedic treatment hyderabad is already famous for its fish medicine the other forms of traditional medicine practised in the state such as the bonesetting technique of puttur and paralysis treatment at chirala in prakasam district are also being popularised by the tourism department