IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/touman/v32y2011i4p709-716.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Medical travel facilitator websites: An exploratory study of web page contents and services offered to the prospective medical tourist

Author

Listed:
  • Cormany, Dan
  • Baloglu, Seyhmus

Abstract

The growing trend of traveling outside of one's country for medical services, commonly known as “medical tourism” is expected to continue to grow exponentially in the next ten years (Keckley, 2008). With multiple destinations from which to select, and available information representing this type of travel being of variable reliability, many prospective medical travelers turn to the use of a “medical tourism facilitator”, who perform a variety of trip coordination responsibilities for the medical traveler. These medical tourism facilitators, themselves a new phenomenon to support travel to various global regions, may operate within the traveler's home country or the destination region. This study explores the services offered on medical tourism facilitators' websites to the prospective traveler. Through the application of correspondence analysis, it was discovered that differences in both website content and in services offered varied by the continent upon which the facilitator operated. With little yet known as to the motivations of a medical traveler in the selection of a specific destination, these discovered differences may be a first insight into regional differences that may play a role in such destination selection.

Suggested Citation

  • Cormany, Dan & Baloglu, Seyhmus, 2011. "Medical travel facilitator websites: An exploratory study of web page contents and services offered to the prospective medical tourist," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 709-716.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:32:y:2011:i:4:p:709-716
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2010.02.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261517710000427
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tourman.2010.02.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Milica Z. Bookman & Karla R. Bookman, 2007. "Medical Tourism in Developing Countries," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-60565-7, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moghavvemi, Sedigheh & Ormond, Meghann & Musa, Ghazali & Mohamed Isa, Che Ruhana & Thirumoorthi, Thinaranjeney & Bin Mustapha, Mohd Zulkhairi & Kanapathy, Kanagi A./P. & Chiremel Chandy, Jacob John, 2017. "Connecting with prospective medical tourists online: A cross-sectional analysis of private hospital websites promoting medical tourism in India, Malaysia and Thailand," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 154-163.
    2. Marya Wani & Vishnupriya Raghavan & Dolphy Abraham & Virginia Kleist, 0. "Beyond utilitarian factors: User experience and travel company website successes," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-17.
    3. Panchapakesan, P., 2013. "Antecedents of customer loyalty in medical tourism," Working Papers Series 2 13-03, ISCTE-IUL, Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL).
    4. Padilla-Meléndez, Antonio & del Águila-Obra, Ana Rosa, 2013. "Web and social media usage by museums: Online value creation," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 892-898.
    5. Connell, John, 2013. "Contemporary medical tourism: Conceptualisation, culture and commodification," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-13.
    6. Cameron, Keri & Crooks, Valorie A. & Chouinard, Vera & Snyder, Jeremy & Johnston, Rory & Casey, Victoria, 2014. "Motivation, justification, normalization: Talk strategies used by Canadian medical tourists regarding their choices to go abroad for hip and knee surgeries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 93-100.
    7. Dalia Perkumienė & Milita Vienažindienė & Biruta Švagždienė, 2019. "Cooperation Perspectives in Sustainable Medical Tourism: The Case of Lithuania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-15, June.
    8. Jiang, Lei & Wu, Huazhang & Song, Yang, 2022. "Diversified demand for health tourism matters: From a perspective of the intra-industry trade," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    9. Marya Wani & Vishnupriya Raghavan & Dolphy Abraham & Virginia Kleist, 2017. "Beyond utilitarian factors: User experience and travel company website successes," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 769-785, August.
    10. PENG, Xue, 2013. "A study on the tourism destination image of Japan in the Chinese market," AGI Working Paper Series 2013-09, Asian Growth Research Institute.
    11. Liao, Ziqi & Shi, Xinping, 2017. "Web functionality, web content, information security, and online tourism service continuance," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 258-263.
    12. Ruhet Genç, 2015. "Enhancement Approach in Well&Illness Tourism," Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 11(2), pages 40-50, April.
    13. Hartmann, Sarah, 2024. "Smoothness as a quality of care: An STS approach to transnational healthcare mediation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 347(C).
    14. Olkiewicz, Marcin, 2016. "The Impact Of Medical Tourism On The Quality Of Organizational And Functional Changes In The Polish Healthcare System," UTMS Journal of Economics, University of Tourism and Management, Skopje, Macedonia, vol. 7(1), pages 109-121.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Prabal Chakraborty & Moumita Poddar, 2020. "Role of Multiple Stakeholders in Value Co-creation and Effects on Medical Tourism," Jindal Journal of Business Research, , vol. 9(1), pages 18-26, June.
    2. Buzinde, Christine N. & Yarnal, Careen, 2012. "Therapeutic landscapes and postcolonial theory: A theoretical approach to medical tourism," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(5), pages 783-787.
    3. Beladi, Hamid & Chao, Chi-Chur & Ee, Mong Shan & Hollas, Daniel, 2015. "Medical tourism and health worker migration in developing countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 391-396.
    4. Moghavvemi, Sedigheh & Ormond, Meghann & Musa, Ghazali & Mohamed Isa, Che Ruhana & Thirumoorthi, Thinaranjeney & Bin Mustapha, Mohd Zulkhairi & Kanapathy, Kanagi A./P. & Chiremel Chandy, Jacob John, 2017. "Connecting with prospective medical tourists online: A cross-sectional analysis of private hospital websites promoting medical tourism in India, Malaysia and Thailand," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 154-163.
    5. Han, Heesup & Hyun, Sunghyup Sean, 2015. "Customer retention in the medical tourism industry: Impact of quality, satisfaction, trust, and price reasonableness," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 20-29.
    6. Yongrok Choi & Zamira Ashurova & Hyoungsuk Lee, 2021. "Sustainable Governance on the Intention of Medical Tourism in Uzbekistan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-18, June.
    7. Salman Majeed & Changbao Lu & Mahwash Majeed & Muahmmad Naeem Shahid, 2018. "Health Resorts and Multi-Textured Perceptions of International Health Tourists," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-26, April.
    8. Ruxandra Diana Sinescu & Andrea Anghel & Razvan Teohari Vulcanescu, 2014. "Hand Surgery – Postoperative Recovery and Medical Tourism," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 16(Special 8), pages 1125-1125, August.
    9. Mohammad Jamal Khan & Firoz Khan & Saba Amin & Shankar Chelliah, 2020. "Perceived Risks, Travel Constraints, and Destination Perception: A Study on Sub-Saharan African Medical Travellers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-16, April.
    10. Wapmuk, Sharkdam & Wapmuk, Agatha Eileen & Gbajabiamila, Titilola Abike, 2015. "Medical Tourism And Nigeria-India Relations," Tourism Research Institute, Journal of Tourism Research, vol. 12(1), pages 46-66, December.
    11. Quang Hai Nguyen, 2021. "Impact of Investment in Tourism Infrastructure Development on Attracting International Visitors: A Nonlinear Panel ARDL Approach Using Vietnam’s Data," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-20, September.
    12. Divya Chaudhry, 2022. "Is Medical Tourism Really Unethical? An Alternate Perspective for Developing Countries," Journal of Development Policy and Practice, , vol. 7(2), pages 145-157, July.
    13. Hilšerová Monika, 2022. "Medical Tourists’ Satisfaction and Decision-Making Factors with a focus on the Czech Republic," Czech Journal of Tourism, Sciendo, vol. 11(1-2), pages 60-83, December.
    14. John C. Langenbrunner & Aparnaa Somanathan, 2011. "Financing Health Care in East Asia and the Pacific : Best Practices and Remaining Challenges," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2321.
    15. Abdel Fattah Mahmoud Al-Azzam, 2016. "A Study of the Impact of Marketing Mix for Attracting Medical Tourism in Jordan," International Journal of Marketing Studies, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(1), pages 139-149, February.
    16. Soojung Kim & Charles Arcodia & Insin Kim, 2019. "Critical Success Factors of Medical Tourism: The Case of South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-15, December.
    17. Horton, Sarah & Cole, Stephanie, 2011. "Medical returns: Seeking health care in Mexico," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(11), pages 1846-1852, June.
    18. Jeroen Klijs & Meghann Ormond & Tomas Mainil & Jack Peerlings & Wim Heijman, 2016. "A state-level analysis of the economic impacts of medical tourism in Malaysia," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 30(1), pages 3-29, May.
    19. Chung-Ping Loh, 2014. "Health tourism on the rise? Evidence from the Balance of Payments Statistics," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(7), pages 759-766, September.
    20. Florența Larisa ILE & Gabriela ȚIGU, 2017. "Balneary Tourism Face To Face With Medical Tourism - A Comparative Exploratory Research," Romanian Economic Business Review, Romanian-American University, vol. 12(4), pages 72-81, december.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:32:y:2011:i:4:p:709-716. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/tourism-management .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.