ITV News published this video item, entitled “Hair transplants: Istanbul’s £1bn growth industry with a catch | ITV News” – below is their description.
Peter Smith looks at how Istanbul has come to dominate the world of hair transplants
Istanbul is known for many delights, but now it has a new honour of being the undisputed hair transplant capital of the world.
Turkey’s biggest city hosts an estimated 2,000 procedures every single day, giving men and women a chance to recover from baldness.
People travel from around the world, partly because the Istanbul package is relatively affordable compared to other destinations – and certainly much cheaper than most surgical options in the UK. There are viral videos showing lines of people with their post-surgery headbands in the departure lounge at one of the city’s airport – which has jokingly been rebranded online as a ‘hairport’ – ready to travel home on Turkish ‘hairlines.’
Yes, it looks unusual, and it’s the butt of a few light-hearted jokes. But it is seriously big business, bringing in around $1bn a year to Turkey.
The sheer numbers coming in also mean the Turkish surgeons have become world-leading experts in their field. After all, practice makes perfect, and in Istanbul there’s no shortage of heads to practice on.
ITV News YouTube Channel
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