For centuries, people around the world have sought out alternative medical treatments in foreign lands. Initially, it was mainly affluent residents of less developed nations who traveled to more advanced countries to access superior healthcare that was unavailable in their homelands. That was the conventional form of health tourism and its offshoot, dental tourism. However, since the 1980s, there has been a reversal in this trend, underlying that residents of industrialized countries have been seeking treatments in far-off lands.