Medical tourism in emerging markets: The role of trust, networks, and word-of-mouth

Abstract

Despite the growing popularity of medical tourism (MT) in emerging markets (EMs), little is known about how healthcare providers operationalize. This article analyzes how healthcare providers meet different challenges to market MT in an EM setting. A qualitative method was used for data collection and conducting case studies on healthcare services in the Philippines. The results show that trust and network building are necessary for mitigating the unfavorable characteristics, instability and lack of legitimacy caused by institutional constraints in EM. Word-of-mouth is found to be important to attract new customers and disseminate information about MT services.

Marketing and social influences, hospital branding, and medical tourists' behavioural intention: Before‐ and after‐service consumption perspective

“…Brand trust also plays a significant role in helping patients to mitigate risk and uncertainty in their selection decision. Patients often rely on their perceived trust of the hospital when selecting a provider for medical services (Han & Hyun, 2015; Hyder et al, 2019). Although brand image formation and perceived brand trust are dominant elements in the before‐service consumption stage, research studies in this area are still lacking (Cham et al, 2016; Riezebos, 2003).…”

“…Patients often depend on the brand image when selecting a healthcare provider in order to lower information search costs, to reduce perceived risks and to simplify their decision‐making (AlSaleh, 2019; Kemp et al, 2014; Wu, 2011). Brand image signifies certain service characteristics and hence, it plays an important role in influencing patients' selection decision (AlSaleh, 2019; Hyder et al, 2019). According to Kim et al (2008) and (2018), branding has a spill over effect.…”

“…Although there is an increased amount of research in the field of medical tourism, not much has been studied on hospital brand formation and its impacts on patients' attitudes and behaviours in the context of before and after consumption. Hospital branding may play a significant role in patients' trust, perceived service quality, patient satisfaction, behavioural intention and consumers' decision-making process (Cham et al, 2016(Cham et al, , 2020Hyder et al, 2019). However, the existing literature in medical services provides limited insight about the formation of hospital branding before service consumption; and how it may impact the perceptions and attitudes of the medical tourists after service consumption.…”

Stakeholder perspectives on ‘Swiss quality’ healthcare in the context of inbound medical tourism to Switzerland: An exploratory qualitative study

“…This 'patient centered' approach reinforces the trust these patients have in 'Swiss quality' label and facilitates the word of mouth publicity for Swiss hospitals. 32 Thus ensuring 'quality' healthcare is crucial for Swiss hospitals trying to attract wealthy foreign patients and to protect the 'trust' these patients bestow on the Swiss health system. The delicate relationship between the quality of care and trust in healthcare services has several implications for foreign and local patients.…”

Challenges Facing Medical Tourism in Jordan from View of Tourism Decision Makers

“…Due to the importance of the tourism sector in general and medical tourism in particular, several studies have sought to reveal the most prominent challenges facing this sector where he conducted (Hyder, Rydback, Borg, and Osarenkhoe, 2019) study aimed to uncover the factors affecting medical tourism in the Philippines, and to achieve this goal, an interview was conducted with a sample of (16) experts in the field of medical tourism in three medical centers: (Clinic Alpha), (Hospital Beta) and (Hospital Gamma) in the Philippines, and after analyzing the interviews, the results showed the existence of several challenges facing medical tourism, including the weak promotion of medical tourism products globally, the weakness of translation services with medical tourists from other countries, and the relative high Prices of some medical tourism services. Radmanesh (2016) indentifies the factors affecting the decision of American tourists and the study included research on cost factors, and quality of care Services, insurance, specialist doctors, travel opportunity, medical failures and communications for medical tourists throughout the case of medical tourism in eight countries.…”