Consumer Decision Components for Medical Tourism A Stakeholder A

2011

Tourism: An international Interdisciplinary Journal, 2011

Even if its roots date back to Antiquity, medical tourism is a very recent concept and refers to patients taking advantage of medical services abroad and their rehabilitation in an environment diff erent from that of their everyday lives. Several factors have led to this recent phenomenon: modern communication tools (Internet), high quality healthcare services in medical tourism destinations (highly-qualifi ed physicians and modern facilities), low prices in order to attract tourist-patients (services must be substantially cheaper) and ease of travel (fl ights are ubiquitous, discounted and patients are taken in charge at their arrival). Consequently, the numbers speak for themselves. A report by Deloitte and Touche portrays North Americans looking abroad for medical treatment by specifying that "6 million Americans will receive treatment in a foreign country in 2010 and 10 million in 2012". It is in this context that we have decided to explore this fi eld of research. Th ...

Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 2018

Medical Tourism is a relatively new field in tourism, where people from developed countries travel to developing countries to avail of their low-cost medical treatment, especially for elective surgeries like cosmetic and weight-loss. The medical tourism facilitators and hospitals in developing countries like India and Thailand, in their attempt to take advantage of this growing new market, apparently use cheap marketing gimmicks to target the cost-sensitive consumers looking for an affordable surgery. The hospitals position themselves as Medical Tourism destinations and the surgery is being sold as a low-cost 'medical holiday package' without compromising the quality. Internet has been identified as the main marketing tool they use to reach out to their target customers. What has not yet been studied is how the consumers make the selection for clinicians and hospitals abroad and what role their personal attributes play in the decision making. Since marketing aims at meeting and satisfying the needs and wants of target consumers, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of how consumers of medical tourism think, feel and act. This research proposes to study consumer behaviour of medical tourists in the UK in order to find out how they go through the buying-decision process stage by stage from problem recognition to information search to evaluation of alternatives before finally making the purchase, and the role their personal characteristics and demographics play in influencing each decision-making stage. This study is expected to help the marketers in designing a robust marketing strategy and to help the consumers in making an informed decision. 2

Iranian journal of public health, 2012

The need for better healthcare has grown significantly in recent years. In addition, the rising healthcare costs in the U.S. and in many European countries have forced many patients to seek medical treatment abroad, which has created the demand for medical tourism. With little yet known as to the perception of a medical tourist's destination selection, this study aims to explore medical tourist's perception in selecting their destination while going for medical treatment. Realizing the current need to examine closely the perception of medical tourists, this study had conducted a secondary study to collect data for assessing and identification of the key factors on patient's perception and destination selection criteria. The result confirms the existence of a very strong relationship between cost, service quality, treatment types and availability and marketing impact on the perception of the medical tourists' in selecting their medical tourism destination. This study ...

2012

There can be unlimited reasons why patients choose different countries while going for medical treatments or procedures. Moreover, empirical evidence on medical tourism is very limited. Due to the limited literature and empirical evidence on the topic, we believe that, other related studies focusing on the choice and criteria of selecting the destination will provide us with some useful insights and information on the factors influencing the patient’s perception in selecting the medical tourism destination in various countries around the world. The aim of this study is to present the theoretical and empirical literature on medical tourist’s perception on selecting the destination while going for medical treatment. It is organized into three main sections. First section focuses on the concepts, definitions and integrates the foregoing definitions of medical tourism and concepts of tourist’s perception of destination selection criteria and the theoretical framework. In section 2, an a...

International Journal of Travel Medicine and Global Health

Introduction: Although many factors can affect the choice of destination in medical tourism, some factors are indispensable to medical tourists and medical tourism. The aim of this study was to analyze important factors affecting the selection of a destination by potential medical tourists. Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study, conducted in Turkey, included a population of 1700 people and a sample size of 317 people selected through purposive sampling. Values were evaluated with a 95% confidence interval and 0.05 standard error. A value of P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. The medical tourism scale and a demographic information form were used in data collection. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and path analysis were used as statistical methods. Analyses were made using IBM SPSS-AMOS 25.0. Results: In this study, 56.5% of the participants were male and 43.5% were female. The factors affecting the selection of medica...

International Journal of Healthcare Management, 2018

Academia Biology, 2024

Eleyele Lake serves the purpose of domestic water supply, transportation, and fisheries; therefore, it is a source of food and livelihood to the artisanal fishers in Ibadan. However, various reports indicated the perturbed state of the lake, which can have adverse effects on the ecosystem services including fisheries. Therefore, this study investigated the catch per unit effort (CPUE) of fish in the Eleyele Lake and some physicochemical parameters in order to establish the status of the fisheries of the lake. Water samples were collected from the lake and analyzed. The fish catches, effective fishing effort (EFF), and CPUE of the lake were determined. The dissolved oxygen and transparency levels were not within the recommended permissible limits. Fish encountered in the lake during the study period belong to nine families and fifteen species. Cichlidae, Polypteridae, and Clariidae were the most frequently encountered families. Shannon-Weiner (2.23), Margalef (2.14) diversity indices, and Evenness (0.87) were highest during the sampling period in 2019. The EFF was 0.37 kW day−1. The mean CPUE increased from 9.55 ± 1.67 kg·kW day−1 in 2019 to 38.07 ± 30.89 kg·kW day−1 in 2021 and declined to 6.44 ± 3.02 kg·kW day−1 in 2023. The forage /carnivore ratio was 0.70 in 2019, 0.35 in 2021, and 54 in 2023 by number indicating an imbalance in the fish population. This study implies that effective management and sustainable exploitation of the fisheries in the Eleyele Lake require improvement of water quality and enforcement of a closed season.