IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/touman/v38y2013icp4-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Toward a typology of medical tourists: A case study of Thailand

Author

Listed:
  • Wongkit, Methawee
  • McKercher, Bob

Abstract

This paper examines the motivations of medical tourists who sought treatment in Thailand. Previous research has tended to treat the medical tourist market as undifferentiated, with the decision to seek treatment made prior to departure. These assumptions may be incorrect, and a significant finding of this study was that medical tourists can be categorized into four different groups, each of which displays significant differences in the types of treatment sought, the motivations for visiting Thailand, the decision making process, and their travel characteristics. One contribution of this study is its indication that if destination managers understand the nature and characteristics of each type of medical tourist, they will be able develop and promote more appropriate and satisfactory medical tourism products and services for their visitors.

Suggested Citation

  • Wongkit, Methawee & McKercher, Bob, 2013. "Toward a typology of medical tourists: A case study of Thailand," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 4-12.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:38:y:2013:i:c:p:4-12
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2013.02.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261517713000538
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.02.003?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. Heung, Vincent C.S. & Kucukusta, Deniz & Song, Haiyan, 2011. "Medical tourism development in Hong Kong: An assessment of the barriers," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 995-1005.
    2. Moghimehfar, Farhad & Nasr-Esfahani, Mohammad Hossein, 2011. "Decisive factors in medical tourism destination choice: A case study of Isfahan, Iran and fertility treatments," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1431-1434.
    3. Milica Z. Bookman & Karla R. Bookman, 2007. "Medical Tourism in Developing Countries," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-60565-7, December.
    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. Prajitmutita, Lyn Manassannan & Perényi, à ron & Prentice, Catherine, 2016. "Quality, Value? – Insights into Medical Tourists’ Attitudes and Behaviors," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 207-216.
    2. Chuang, Thomas C. & Liu, John S. & Lu, Louis Y.Y. & Lee, Yachi, 2014. "The main paths of medical tourism: From transplantation to beautification," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 49-58.
    3. de la Hoz-Correa, Andrea & Muñoz-Leiva, Francisco & Bakucz, Márta, 2018. "Past themes and future trends in medical tourism research: A co-word analysis," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 200-211.
    4. Lautier, Marc, 2014. "International trade of health services: Global trends and local impact," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 105-113.
    5. Jaapar, Mustaffa & Musa, Ghazali & Moghavvemi, Sedigheh & Saub, Roslan, 2017. "Dental tourism: Examining tourist profiles, motivation and satisfaction," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 538-552.

    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. Panchapakesan, P., 2013. "Antecedents of customer loyalty in medical tourism," Working Papers Series 2 13-03, ISCTE-IUL, Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL).
    2. Connell, John, 2013. "Contemporary medical tourism: Conceptualisation, culture and commodification," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-13.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Ricardo Pagan & Daniel Horsfall, 2020. "Medical Tourism Markets: Models of Sustainability. The Case of Spain and The Costa del Sol (Malaga)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-17, October.
    7. Masoud lajevardi, 2016. "A Comprehensive Perspective On Medical Tourism Context And Create A Conceptual Framework," Tourism Research Institute, Journal of Tourism Research, vol. 14(1), pages 101-134, October.
    8. Fetscherin, Marc & Stephano, Renee-Marie, 2016. "The medical tourism index: Scale development and validation," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 539-556.
    9. Han, Heesup & Kim, Yunhi & Kim, Chulwon & Ham, Sunny, 2015. "Medical hotels in the growing healthcare business industry: Impact of international travelers' perceived outcomes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 1869-1877.
    10. Zhang, Jun & Seo, Sangyun & Lee, Hoonyoung, 2013. "The impact of psychological distance on Chinese customers when selecting an international healthcare service country," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 32-40.
    11. Han, Heesup, 2013. "The healthcare hotel: Distinctive attributes for international medical travelers," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 257-268.
    12. 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.
    13. Sajad Rezaei & Wan Khairuzzaman Wan Ismail, 2014. "Examining online channel selection behaviour among social media shoppers: a PLS analysis," International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 6(1), pages 28-51.
    14. Ya-Hui Wang, 2014. "The Demand For Medical Cosmetology: Evidence From China," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 8(4), pages 61-70.
    15. Pham Ngoc Thuy & Le Nguyen Hau & Nguyen Kim Ngoc Duyen, 2019. "A value perspective of service interaction quality: the case of immigrants returning to native countries as medical tourists," International Journal of Quality Innovation, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-15, December.
    16. Majid FESHARI & Hedayat HOSSEINZADEH, 2018. "The Relationship Between Health Care And Tourism Demand In Iranian Economy," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(2), pages 173-180, July.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    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:38:y:2013:i:c:p:4-12. 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.