Apollo Hospitals’ recovery in medical tourism from Bangladesh is bringing one of India’s largest international patient corridors closer to its pre-crisis level, but the numbers also reveal how dependent urban healthcare networks are on political stability, cross-border ties and hospital capacity. The company expects annualised revenue from Bangladeshi patients to reach ₹350-360 crore this year, compared with a pre-crisis peak of ₹450 crore and a low of ₹120 crore a year.
The recovery was disclosed by Krishnan Akhileswaran, chief financial officer of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, who said Bangladesh patient revenue had grown 80 per cent year-on-year. Apollo’s international patient services business grew nearly 37 per cent in the July-September quarter of FY27. Africa grew 30 per cent, while patients from Europe also increased, although from a lower base.
These figures are more than a company performance indicator. They show how medical tourism is embedded in the functioning of Indian cities. International patients depend on a network that includes tertiary hospitals, diagnostic facilities, pharmacies, accommodation, local transport, interpreters, visa services and family support. When cross-border movement slows, the impact is felt not only in hospital revenue but across this wider urban service ecosystem.
Bangladesh has historically been the largest source of medical tourists to India. According to official data cited in the report, the total number of foreign medical patients in India fell to 507,000 from a peak of 659,000 in 2023 and 625,000 in 2024. The decline coincided with political unrest in Bangladesh in 2024 and 2025, as well as deteriorating bilateral ties and the emergence of a government viewed as unfriendly to New Delhi.
The fall from 659,000 foreign medical patients in 2023 to 507,000 represents a substantial contraction in the addressable demand for India’s hospitals. The figures also indicate that the disruption was not limited to one provider. Apollo, described in the report as the market leader, was among the companies most affected because of its exposure to international patients and Bangladesh’s importance in the medical travel market.
Apollo’s current run rate suggests a significant recovery, but not a complete return to the earlier level. Revenue of ₹350-360 crore would be roughly four-fifths of the ₹450-crore pre-crisis peak. That gap is important. It suggests that the recovery is substantial while also showing that medical tourism does not return automatically when political or administrative conditions improve. Patient decisions are shaped by confidence, travel access, referral relationships, treatment costs, hospital reputation and the ability of families to manage extended stays in another country.
The geography of medical tourism makes the issue an urban one. Advanced treatment is concentrated in large metropolitan hospitals where specialist doctors, intensive-care facilities, operating theatres, diagnostics and post-operative care are available at scale. International patients therefore enter cities through specific healthcare clusters rather than through the health system as a whole. Apollo’s performance reflects the strength of this model, but also its concentration risk.
When demand from one country drops sharply, hospitals with substantial international exposure can experience an uneven change in their patient mix. The effect may be felt in occupancy, revenue per patient, specialist scheduling and the utilisation of high-value clinical infrastructure. The supplied figures do not establish how Apollo’s bed occupancy or margins changed during the downturn, but they show that international patient services were material enough for the company to identify Bangladesh as a major factor in its performance.
The company is now expanding capacity even as its international patient business recovers. Apollo plans to operationalise 4,718 beds over the next five years. Of these, 520 beds have already been commissioned, while around 1,400 more are expected to come on stream over the next 12 months. This is a major physical expansion of healthcare infrastructure, although the report does not specify the locations, specialties or patient segments attached to each tranche of capacity.
That distinction matters because hospital beds are not interchangeable units. A new bed becomes useful only when supported by doctors, nurses, diagnostics, operating capacity, critical-care support, pharmaceuticals and reliable facility management. The report provides the bed numbers but does not establish how much of the planned expansion is intended for international patients, domestic demand or particular medical specialties. It is therefore not possible to treat the additional capacity as a direct measure of future medical-tourism growth.
The company’s restructuring adds another institutional layer. Apollo HealthCo is planned to be demerged from Apollo Hospitals Enterprise into a new entity, Apollo Healthtech Limited, after which its pharma distribution arm, Keimed, will be merged into the new company. Apollo expects the process to be completed by the end of the fourth quarter of FY27.
According to the CFO, the demerged entity comprising Apollo HealthCo and Keimed is expected to be running at around ₹25,000 crore with ₹1,500 crore of EBITDA by the end of the financial year and is intended to be listed by the end of Q4. This restructuring separates the hospital business from a large health-products and distribution operation. Its effect on international patient services is not established in the supplied material, but it will change the corporate structure through which different parts of the healthcare network are managed.
The separation also highlights the multiple layers behind urban healthcare delivery. A hospital’s international patient business may be most visible at the clinical facility, but it depends on pharmaceutical supply chains, diagnostics, referral channels and administrative systems that extend beyond the hospital campus. The proposed corporate structure places some of these activities in a distinct entity while Apollo continues to expand its hospital capacity.
The national patient numbers provide a wider context for the company’s recovery. India recorded 625,000 foreign medical patients in 2024, before the figure fell to 507,000, according to the official data cited by Business Standard. The 2023 peak of 659,000 shows that the recent downturn followed a period of strong growth. Bangladesh’s role as the largest source means that developments in one neighbouring country can significantly influence India’s overall medical-tourism numbers.
At the same time, Apollo’s reported growth across Africa and Europe indicates that its international strategy is not limited to Bangladesh. The growth from Africa and Europe may help diversify the company’s patient base, although the available information does not provide revenue values or patient counts for those markets. Europe’s growth was specifically described as coming from a lower base, making it difficult to compare its contribution with Bangladesh’s.
This uneven geographic pattern is a central feature of medical tourism in India. Patient flows are not distributed uniformly across cities or providers. They follow established clinical reputations, specialist availability, travel routes and trusted referral networks. A hospital can therefore report strong international growth overall while remaining vulnerable to a downturn in one major source market.
For cities, the policy question is not only how many foreign patients arrive but how healthcare infrastructure is planned around changing demand. Large hospital expansions require land, power, water, waste management, road access and public transport. International patients and their accompanying families also create demand for nearby accommodation and support services. The report does not quantify these requirements, but Apollo’s planned addition of 4,718 beds demonstrates the scale at which private healthcare infrastructure is being built.
The government’s role is also broader than promoting medical travel. Cross-border healthcare depends on diplomatic relations, entry procedures, patient documentation and the reliability of travel links. The decline in foreign medical patients during a period of political unrest and strained bilateral relations shows that healthcare demand can be affected by conditions outside the hospital sector. For providers, clinical capacity alone cannot guarantee patient flows.
Apollo’s recovery to an annualised Bangladesh revenue run rate of ₹350-360 crore suggests that the corridor is rebuilding, but it does not confirm that the political or institutional conditions behind the recovery have fully stabilised. Nor does it establish whether the company will regain the earlier ₹450-crore level. The available evidence confirms a strong rebound, not a complete restoration.
The next phase will be shaped by two parallel developments: whether international patient volumes continue to recover and whether Apollo can commission its planned beds while completing the HealthCo restructuring. The company expects around 1,400 beds to be operationalised over the next 12 months and the demerged entity to be listed by the end of Q4 of FY27. Those milestones will indicate how the corporate transition and physical expansion progress alongside the recovery in medical tourism.
