Park JungKun, Ahn Jiseon, Yoo Weon Sang
JungKun Park, PhD, professor, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea; Jiseon Ahn, Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, University of Houston, Texas; and Weon Sang Yoo, PhD, professor, business school, Korea University, Seoul.
J Healthc Manag. 2017 Nov/Dec;62(6):405-417. doi: 10.1097/JHM-D-16-00016.
The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of price and health consciousness on medical tourism. Accordingly, we explore the utility of the theory of planned behavior for assessing the relationships between several variables and explain consumers' intentions to be repeat medical tourists. A 26-item questionnaire was developed, and data were collected from 407 patients who visited South Korea for medical purposes. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The results indicate that medical tourists' price consciousness was significant with respect to their satisfaction with medical and travel services. However, health consciousness also influenced their decision-making process. The study results reveal that health consciousness did not have a significant effect on tourists' satisfaction with medical travel services. Although this study was conducted in South Korea, the findings may be relevant elsewhere. When developing products and services for the medical tourism industry, policymakers and service providers should focus on the importance of cost-effectiveness.
本研究的目的是分析价格和健康意识对医疗旅游的影响。因此，我们探讨了计划行为理论在评估几个变量之间关系方面的效用，并解释了消费者成为重复医疗游客的意图。我们编制了一份包含26个条目的问卷，并从407名前往韩国就医的患者中收集了数据。采用结构方程模型对数据进行分析。结果表明，医疗游客的价格意识对他们对医疗和旅行服务的满意度有显著影响。然而，健康意识也影响了他们的决策过程。研究结果显示，健康意识对游客对医疗旅行服务的满意度没有显著影响。尽管本研究是在韩国进行的，但研究结果可能在其他地方也适用。在为医疗旅游业开发产品和服务时，政策制定者和服务提供商应关注成本效益的重要性。
