The main purpose of this chapter is to discuss the destinations hosting health tourism and how the locals living there are affected by this situation and what the reasons are. The impacts of tourism on destinations and the attitude of locals towards tourism were discussed. Afterwards, the destinations where health tourism has developed and its impacts on the locals living there were discussed with different examples. As a result of the examinations, the positive impacts of health tourism are seen as contributing to the local economy, employment creation, improving the infrastructure and superstructure, giving importance to education, training qualified health professionals, and providing a better service standard. Its negative impacts are brain drain, supply-demand gap, inequality, ethical and moral problems, exploitative activity in poor countries (such as organ transplants and surrogacy), inflationary pressure, xenophobia, and alienation from tourism. The chapter was concluded with general evaluations, solutions and recommendations, and suggestions for future research.

The study examines the mediation role of fear of COVID-19 on the relationships between the ambiguity of death and intolerance of uncertainty related to the holiday. Data was obtained from a total of 538 participants in the quantitative research and a total of 19 participants in the qualitative research in Türkiye. Quantitative results showed that the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty related to holiday and ambiguity of death was partially mediated by fear of COVID-19. Qualitative results differ in some points. This study sheds light on the perception of travel risk and its causes and offers a new perspective.