Rise and fall of birth tourism: How U.S. policy changes are reshaping a billion-dollar trend?
(curlytales.com photo)
Today birth tourism becomes more popular in the world. Birth tourism means that families choose any country and travel there to give birth to their child. They usually do this to those countries, giving some advantage to the children born in that country, creating opportunities to become citizens of that country in the future.
This is also similar to health tourism, but it is different. Usually such trips don’t come cheap. It costs even 5-10 times more expensive than ordinary tourist trips. For example, if normally the cost per tourist in the world is about $1000-1500, in health tourism this cost is about $6000-10000. People want to give birth in those countries which give more advantage.
In recent years, we have seen an increase in the number of people traveling to the United States for birth tourism. The United States is not in the first ranks as a country receiving tourists in terms of the number of tourists, but it differs significantly in terms of income from tourism. The United States earns more than 250 billion dollars from tourism annually.
This includes not only domestic tourism costs, but also foreign tourists. It is true that medical services in the USA are not cheap, but despite this, families on birth tourism choose the USA more and more in order to get some legal advantages in the future.
However, President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in the US. Trump's executive order ending automatic citizenship for babies born to non-permanent residents has left families scrambling to ensure their children’s futures.
In a race against the clock, many expectant parents in the U.S. are opting for preterm C-sections to beat the February 20 deadline for birthright citizenship.
This decision, of course, will drastically reduce the number of people going to the United States for this purpose. If birth tourism was a motivation for someone before, now that there is no longer such a rule, those people will not be interested in going to the United States. Although the United States is not a country that receives many tourists in the world, it is one of the countries that receive the most income from tourism in general. Because there are people who go to the United States for education, business and other purposes, and these are also quite expensive. But the USA as a country is very interesting for travelers.
Jeyhun Ashurov
President at SKAL International BAKU
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