Examining medical tourists' intention to visit a tourist destination: Application of an extended MEDTOUR scale in a cosmetic tourism context

Abstract

Behavioral studies of medical tourists are still limited despite a recent and rapid boom in both the business and academic fields. In 2011, Martin, Ramamonjiarivelo, and Martin proposed their MEDTOUR scale to better understand medical tourists' intention to seek treatment overseas. However, the scale has not been validated through application in a different context to date. The present study aims to fill this gap by examining its reliability and applying it in an extended model with perceived risk and perceived benefit. Based on the results of the data collected from Chinese adults, the MEDTOUR scale achieved an acceptable level of factorial, convergent, and discriminant validity. Support was confirmed for all hypotheses with a relatively weak relation between perceived risk and attitude, as well as perceived behavioral control and behavior intention. This study's findings fully support the prediction of behavior intention to travel to a foreign country for medical treatment and provides some useful findings to help medical tourism marketers and hospitals in developing their strategies.

Chinese traditional village residents’ behavioural intention to support tourism: an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour

“…Our finding of a relatively weak relationship between residents’ PBC and AB (supporting H5 ) reinforces the results of previous studies (Liang et al , 2019; Zhang and Wang, 2019). Liang et al (2019) found that tourists’ PBC was related to their attitude towards a tourist destination.…”

“…Our finding of a relatively weak relationship between residents’ PBC and AB (supporting H5 ) reinforces the results of previous studies (Liang et al , 2019; Zhang and Wang, 2019). Liang et al (2019) found that tourists’ PBC was related to their attitude towards a tourist destination. Similarly, Zhang and Wang (2019) confirmed that tourists’ PBC had a significant impact on their rural tourism attitudes, although it was the weakest predictor.…”

“…Vesci and Botti (2019) reported a positive relationship between attendee attitude towards local festivals and their revisit intentions. Liang et al (2019) previously found that Chinese tourists’ AB influenced their behavioural intention to visit a foreign country for medical treatment. Olya et al (2019) found that tourists’ AB was related to their continued intention to use green hotels and their intention to recommend.…”

“…A survey of 586 street food consumers in Delhi revealed that their attitudes towards the street foods positively affected their behavioural intention (Gupta et al , 2018). With a sample of 522 medical tourists in China, Liang et al (2019) found that among the TPB constructs, both AB and SNs had a strong impact on medical tourists’ visit intention, whereas PBC had a moderately significant effect. Vesci and Botti (2019) found that the AB, PBC and SNs of Italian culinary festival attendees all significantly affected revisit intentions.…”

“…Some scholars have argued that the inclusion of other constructs within the TPB might increase its predictive power (Armitage and Conner, 2001; Nunkoo and Ramkissoon, 2010a; Tournois and Djeric, 2018). Such constructs have included moral norm (Clark et al , 2019; Grilli and Notaro, 2019; Ru et al , 2019), past behaviour (Potwarka, 2015), self-efficacy (Lee and Kim, 2017), environmental concern (Maichum et al , 2016; Paul et al , 2016), self-identity (Whitmarsh and O’Neill, 2010), social identity (Choo et al , 2016), habit (Lo et al , 2016), perceived risk and benefit (Liang et al , 2019) and mindset (Japutra et al , 2019). However, to our knowledge, few studies have incorporated PA in the TPB to examine residents’ BI.…”