Publication Details
Abstract
The current research examines the key factors of taking a medical treatment decision abroad and considers the relationship between the quality of medical services, the overall tourism context, and information-sharing patterns. The scholarship that has emerged on medical tourism on the international front is voluminous, but the thread that runs through the establishment of such determinants in the young healthcare marketplaces, where the healthcare infrastructure and governance systems are developing, is an underrepresented topic. Taking the form of a quantitative survey design, the study based its findings on the information gathered about 498 people. The dataset was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), in which the perceived value was introduced as an intervening construct. It can be seen that the quality of medical services and information sharing have significant effects to behavioral intention, nonetheless, tourism-related conditions did not cause any significant impacts. Further, perceived value mediates all the association between medical factors and intention and some of the mediation that lies between the information sharing variables. In early phase markets, therefore, patients will lay more emphasis on the effectiveness and consequent confidence of the treatment than the recreational appeal of medical tourism. The conclusions provide theoretical explorations to the push-pull mechanism of medical tourism and provide an empirical insight to formulate health policies and infrastructure establishment in an informed manner.