Dental tourism is one of the forms of medical tourism, which has recently been expanding. Dental tourism is a rapidly developing activity in many parts of the world, including in Croatia.

Dental tourism, as a part of health tourism, represents the travel of a patient from the home country for the purpose of obtaining dental health services.

The most common incentive for using dental tourism services is, first of all, prices. But certainly additional motives are the attractiveness of the destinations where dental tourism services take place, as well as the business standards that dental service providers provide to their users.

In addition to the dental services themselves, dental tourism usually includes transportation and accommodation services in a certain destination. Very often, especially for initial visits, it is additionally enriched with excursions that allow patients/users to get to know local cultural and natural sights.

The development of dental tourism is influenced by many factors, such as the increasing mobility of people, the increased intensity of use of technological devices (IT, smartphones, etc.) as well as social networks that provide quick and reliable insights into the price and quality of dental services in individual destinations and clinics.

The Republic of Croatia is an attractive tourist country full of natural and cultural sights, which was followed by a quality offer of dental services.
As Croatia is located relatively close to developed countries where the prices of dental services are usually much higher than in Croatia, the potential for further development of dental tourism in Croatia is great.

Users of dental services come from various countries, mainly from Italy, Austria, Great Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway, as well as from other countries of the European Union.

Apart from Croatia, other countries are also developing dental tourism, so dental services oriented towards dental tourism are organized in Hungary, Albania, Serbia, Poland, Lithuania, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Some of the countries that offer dental tourism services in a more organized manner are Lithuania, Romania, Poland, Costa Rica, Mexico, Serbia, Croatia, etc. Mainly, Eastern European countries.

In most of these countries, there are many dental offices dedicated mainly to dental tourism. Clinics in these countries use standard, high-quality materials, often from the same manufacturers as clinics in the patients’ home countries, and dental services are complemented by other services and attractions (excursions, gastronomy…) that further motivate patients to use their services.