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Healthtrip Expands Into Middle East To Boost Health Tourism
The company has also launched THRIVE, a unique personal transformation program designed to rejuvenate the mind and body.
Healthtrip, a UK-based platform specializing in medical and wellness travel, has officially extended its operations into the Middle East, opening offices in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia. This expansion is aimed at meeting the growing demand for advanced healthcare services in the region.
Middle Eastern countries are increasingly focused on becoming global hubs for health tourism, and the region already attracts millions of international visitors each year. The health tourism industry, currently valued at over $1 trillion annually, caters to individuals seeking high-quality medical treatments abroad.
With a rapidly aging Western population and significant wealth among older generations, the sector is growing at an impressive 18% per year. The rise is further driven by increased awareness of available treatments and improved lifespans.

Danish Ahmed, CEO and co-founder of Healthtrip, stated: “Our recent expansion into the Middle East aligns with the region’s mission to advance health, wellness, longevity, and anti-aging experiences for global travelers. Treatments such as longevity and aesthetics are rapidly growing in demand in the region’s destinations, complementing its well-established medical offerings”.
To date, Healthtrip has served more than 65,000 clients from 38 countries via its cutting-edge AI-powered platform. The technology connects patients with healthcare providers based on factors such as treatment type, ratings, cost, and location. Additionally, the platform offers a range of destination services, such as hotel bookings, airport transfers, concierge services, and interpreter support.
Also Read: Google’s New AI Technology May Revolutionize Cancer Treatment
Healthtrip’s unique offering has quickly made it a dominant player in the global health tourism sector, along with support from several UAE-based venture capital firms. In the Middle East, the company has established partnerships with respected healthcare providers, including Saudi German Hospitals, Burjeel Group, American Hospital, Kings College Hospital, Zoya Wellness, and Kaya Skincare.
Along with its recent expansion, Healthtrip has also created THRIVE, a unique transformation program designed to rejuvenate the mind and body. THRIVE offers a residential experience focusing on physical therapy, mental wellness, and holistic health practices, appealing to individuals looking for a comprehensive lifestyle reset.
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Instagram Now Lets You Tune Its Algorithm, But There’s One Big Catch
The new controls promise users “agency” over their feed, but asking to see more from accounts you actually follow returns an error.
Instagram has expanded its algorithm personalization feature to the main feed, letting users specify which topics they want surfaced more or less often in recommendations.
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri framed the change as a matter of user control. “I believe it’s in our best interest as a business to empower people to shape Instagram into something that works for them, and that people should be able to have a meaningful amount of agency over the products they spend so much time in,” he wrote on Threads.
Though it turns out that agency has limits. The controls only accept interest-based topics, such as “rescue dogs” or “parenting humor”. Requesting “posts from people I follow” returns no results, which is obviously a sore point for creators whose posts rarely reach their own audiences. Mosseri conceded the tension: “Who you follow used to be a meaningful tool people had for shaping their own experience, and as recommendations took over the main feed that tool quietly stopped working”.
Also Read: How To Find & Cancel Pending Instagram Requests
Instagram credits large language models for making its algorithms legible enough to personalize, and says it is “actively working on supporting requests for people, different moods or vibes, content types, and more” – potentially leading to a fully “bespoke” version of the app.
