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.
► The paper examines tourists who sought medical treatment in Thailand. ► Four discrete medial tourist segments were identified. ► The study challenges the belief that most medical tourists decide to seek treatment prior to leaving home.
This article reviews the evolution of medical tourism during the COVID-19 crisis, which para-lyzed most of the destination cities, as well as the pandemic’s impact on tourists who travelled for ...medical reasons. The author emphasizes the recovery of a highly competitive destination, well-positioned among U.S. Americans, Tijuana, on the border with San Diego, California, com-pared to other destinations, one national (Cancún), and the other international (Thailand). Using data from the INEGI-Banxico about international travelers in 2019, 2020, and 2021, statistics from the World Tourism Organization, and interviews with suppliers and leaders of medical clusters, she found that, as other regions closed down, residents from different U.S. cities far from the Mexican border, and even some from distant countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, opted to come to Mexico for medical treatments.
El objetivo de este artículo es revisar la evolución del turismo médico en la etapa de crisis de COVID-19, que paralizó a la mayoría de destinos, así como el impacto de la pandemia en los tras-lados de turistas que viajan por motivos médicos. Se enfatiza la recuperación de un destino alta-mente competitivo y bien posicionado entre la población de Estados Unidos, la ciudad de Tijuana en la frontera con San Diego, California, comparándolo con otros destinos, uno nacional (Cancún, Quintana Roo –México–) y el otro internacional (Tailandia). Con base en datos de INEGI-Banxico sobre viajeros internacionales en 2019, 2020 y 2021, cifras de la Organización Mundial del Turis-mo (OMT) y entrevistas a proveedores y dirigentes de clústers médicos, se encontró que, ante el cierre en otras regiones, residentes de varias ciudades estadounidenses alejadas de la frontera con México e incluso de países distantes, de Asia, Medio Oriente y Europa, optaron por México para realizarse tratamientos médicos.
The United Kingdom is the first and so far only country to pass explicit legislation allowing for the licensed use of the new reproductive technology known as mitochondrial replacement therapy. The ...techniques used in this technology may prevent the transmission of mitochondrial DNA diseases, but they are controversial because they involve the manipulation of oocytes or embryos and the transfer of genetic material. Some commentators have even suggested that MRT constitutes germline genome modification. All eyes were on the United Kingdom as the most likely location for the first MRT birth, so it was a shock when, on September 27, 2016, an announcement went out that the first baby to result from use of the intervention had already been born. In New York City, United States‐based scientist John Zhang used maternal spindle transfer (one of the recognized MRT methods) to generate five embryos for a woman carrying oocytes with deleterious mutations of the mitochondrial DNA. Zhang then shipped the only euploid embryo to Mexico, where it was transferred to the mother's uterus. Zhang's team's travel across international borders to carry out experimental procedures represents a form of scientific tourism that has not been properly ethically explored; it can, however, have seriously detrimental effects for developing countries.
In the past few decades, the number of Indonesians who travel abroad for medicaltourism has increased dramatically. A literature review has indicated that researchinvestigating the underlying ...motivational factors for Indonesians to travel overseasfor medical treatment is still a few. Therefore, this study aimed to segment theIndonesian medical tourists based on push and pull travel motivation constructs.Exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis techniques were applied to analyzethe data. A survey was completed to 192 Indonesians who have had a medical travel experience overseas. The results of this study revealed four push motivational factors and three pull motivational factors. Based on this push and pull factors, three different medical tourist segments were identified: trendy, prudent, and opportunistic segments. The emergence of these three segments would require different approaches and strategies for tourism stakeholders to serve each segment better.
This study uses coupled coordination, spatial autocorrelation, and grey correlation analysis to examine the degree, trends, and spatial distribution of health tourism industry integration in ...Guangdong Province, China, to explore the relevant factors affecting its development, and to summarize the mechanisms and paths of such integration. Results show that (1) the overall development trend of convergence of the health tourism industry in Guangdong Province is generally positive, and the health and tourism industries are in a benign coupling state of mutual promotion; (2) the convergence of the health tourism industry in Guangdong Province shows obvious local spatial agglomeration characteristics, and the spatial distribution pattern of cold hot spots of industrial coupling coordination shows the characteristics of "cold in the north and hot in the south" and "cold in the east and west, hot in the middle;" (3) among those factors affecting the convergence of health tourism industry in Guangdong Province, market demand exerts the greatest influence, followed by human resources, technological innovation, government support, and basic transportation; and (4) in the convergence mechanism of the health tourism industry in Guangdong Province, demand is the endogenous driving force, talent cultivation and technological innovation are the sustained supporting forces, and government support is the external driving force. Some suggestions are put forward to promote the convergence of the health and tourism industries and to provide a reference for the global health tourism industry to achieve high-quality convergence and development.
Introduction: One of the new tourism capacities of Iran in recent years is medical tourism, which has grown significantly. Tehran is one of the most important cities in the Middle East in the field ...of medical tourism. This study intends to analyse medical tourism capacity development in Tehran hospitals from international tourists’ perspective to identify the most efficient factors in medical tourism capacity development in Tehran hospitals. Methods: The research type is applied and the research method is descriptive-analytical. The research sample is the international medical tourists entering five major Tehran hospitals having the International Patient Department license (IPD), in which 154 samples were selected randomly from a total sample society of 258 using Cochran formula. Results: The results show that the priority areas of medical tourism capacity development in Tehran are low medical costs, optimal quality of services, easy access to medical services and physicians’ knowledge, respectively. Conclusion: In general, regarding the studied variables, it can be concluded that there is a good opportunity for medical tourism capacity development in Tehran from the international tourists’ viewpoint.
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.
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