31 / Shopping Tourism

I am in Singapore (shown here), a clean and neat business center with a nine billion dollar a year tourism industry based on shopping. And I am not just talking about the kind of shopping you find on Orchard Road, the street with the highest concentration of the indoor shopping malls that people come to Singapore to visit - the kind of shopping centers that feature a seemingly endless array high end shops, and in which you can literally get lost all day.



It turns out that "medical tourism" is also a big business in Singapore. According to a guide who spoke to me, 40% of the medical procedures carried out in Singapore hospitals are for visitors who have come to Singapore specifically for the operations they undergo.