The war of words .... Is medical tourism or medical travel?

I just read Constantine Constantinides latest missive about medical tourism and informative. Constantine runs Healthcare Cybernetics and is one of the heads "wise men" of medical tourism.
Constantine says:

"I'm getting fed up with industry newcomers (" Johnny-come-latelys "), and the auto industry strange upstarts who take issue with the word desk – arguing that isn't" big "enough to be associated with. They propose replacing it with the word" trip ". Some suggest we drop everything and start talking of Global Health (as if health care has not been global for ages) .... I don't like the word "tourism" – but also do not like the various alternatives suggested "

He makes some interesting points:

"The word that is derived from tourism Tour-tur Anglo-French, turning tourn, circuit – a journey there and back .travel cannot include a" back ".

So, here is my two pennyworth (English idiom!).

Let's start with vista from Google. Why? Because Google reflects the way that people use words.

I did a Google search for multiple terms: UK

A survey of medical tourism generated 19,700 000 results. (Our treatment abroad and related Web sites to protect three of the ten best positions. A pat on the back by our team of search engine optimisation)! A search for the course doctor generated 73,300 000 results. A search for health tourism generated 36.600.000 results.(Treatment abroad is not 2 for this search. Another Pat on the back to SEO.) A search for travel health generated 250,000 000 results. A global health survey generated 133,000, 000 results.

But we probably need to be a bit more specific. Putting the phrase in quotation marks, for example, "medical tourism", Google only returns results for the exact phrase:

"medical tourism" generated 5,290 000 results. "medical travel" generated 443000 results. "health tourism" generated 798.000 results. "health travel" generated 505.000 results. "global health" generated 3,220 000 results

The previous analysis tells you which words and phrases are used most often on sites indexed by Google. But what terms people use when searching? Here is another analysis. This time we look at the monthly average search volume on Google around the world:

travel medical tourism-90.500 searches per month of health tourism-if searches per month health-165000 searches per month global health-135000 searches per month

And the winner is?

Medical tourism Is probably ....

Why? Why is the phrase that is common to use, whether we like it or not. Is what the media uses when they write about the industry. Is what the man on the Clapham omnibus would probably say. Is the best phrase to use? Probably not.

I prefer medical travel!