Medical Tourism Experience: Conceptualization, Scale Development, and Validation
Medical Tourism Experience: Conceptualization, Scale Development, and Validation
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DOI：
10.1177/0047287518813469
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发表时间：
2019-11-01
影响因子：
8.9
通讯作者：
Mandal, Santanu
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ghosh, Tathagata;Mandal, Santanu
虽然以身体健康为目的的旅行早已成为一种惯例，但医疗旅游是一种新兴现象，其特点是医疗保健与度假活动相结合。由于全球医疗游客数量呈指数级增长，医疗旅游业迅速发展。尽管实践中出现这种热潮，但很少有研究关注探索医疗游客对医疗目的地提供的广泛服务的体验和看法。本文提出了一种称为“医疗旅游体验”的概念，并开发了一个衡量它的量表。采用严格的量表开发程序，并进行了四项研究。探讨了该构建的七个维度，即治疗质量、医疗服务质量、医疗旅游费用、医疗旅游基础设施、目的地吸引力、目的地文化和交通便利性。结果表明，营销人员和政策制定者有相当多的机会来增加医疗目的地的吸引力并获得可持续的竞争优势。
While travel for physical well-being has long been a practice, medical tourism is an emerging phenomenon characterized by medical care combined with holiday-making activities. The medical tourism industry has rapidly grown due to exponential growth in the number of medical tourists worldwide. Despite this upsurge in practice, less research attention has been devoted to exploring the experience and perceptions of medical tourists toward the wide range of services available to them at medical destinations. This article conceptualizes a construct called "medical tourism experience" and develops a scale that measures it. A rigorous scale development procedure is employed, and four studies are conducted. Seven dimensions of this construct are explored, namely, treatment quality, medical service quality, medical tourism expense, medical tourism infrastructure, destination appeal, destination culture, and ease of access. The results reveal considerable opportunity for marketers and policy makers to increase the attractiveness of medical destinations and gain sustainable competitive advantages.