Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to explore how Americans choose a country and medical facility to travel abroad for medical treatment based on the following factors country environment, tourism destination, medical tourism costs and medical facilities and services. Design/methodology/approach-Online survey with the help of Amazon Mechanical Turk website was used for data collection, and 541 valid cases were used of American residents who had travelled abroad for medical tourism. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were undertaken to validate the scales. Findings-Findings indicated four major factors that can influence American medical tourists' choices of medical tourism destinations. These factors are overseas' country factors, attractiveness of tourism destination, medical tourism costs and facilities and services. Both the convergent and discriminant validities for the constructs were established. The results of the measurement-model-fit based on various measures were within the suggested cutoff values. Research limitations/implications-Out of the 541 responses of post-travel experienced medical tourists, it is hard to tell how similar/dissimilar the participants are in terms of ranking the four factors. To be competitive to attract global medical tourists, research suggests that the five popular countries of treatment, India, China, Thailand, Mexico and Turkey, identified in this study should provide high quality of medical and tourism facilities to patients. Originality/value-This study contributes to the understanding of the underlying factors, which influence American medical tourists' choice of destinations, with validated scales. For this exploratory research, 25 new items together with 34 items from other studies were adapted.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the supply-side factors that determines the quality of global healthcare services from medical tourism healthcare providers’ (MTHP) perspective, which provide value-in-medical-travel to foreign patients/medical tourists, who travel to India for medical treatment/surgery. Design/methodology/approach The thematic content analysis of in-depth interviews with 15 senior MTHP, from 15 private hospitals in India was undertaken, to generate the themes, and identify the supply-side factors necessary for sustainable medical tourism management. Findings The findings conclude that MTHP ranked in ascending order, less waiting-time for surgery, healthcare quality and accreditation, staff/surgeon’s expertise, healthcare information, hospital facilities and services, patient-safety, travel-risk, surgical costs and holiday opportunity as essential factors for providing sustainable quality and value-in-medical-travel to patients. Research limitations/implications Many private hospital spokespersons declined to be interviewed due to confidentiality and privacy policy Practical implications The findings are generalised in case of global private hospitals treating foreign patients. Policy implications suggest that private hospitals in developing countries need to focus on providing value-in-medical-travel, such as accreditation quality of healthcare, no waiting-time, patient-safety, qualified and experienced medical and non-medical staff, hospital facilities and post-surgery care with positive healthcare outcomes. Social implications Medical-tour facilitators, hotels and tourism sites need to collaborate with agencies to provide inclusive built environment, first-aid and wheelchair access, to medical tourists, having financial and legal implications for business. Originality/value There is little qualitative empirical research on the views of MTHP, regarding management of essential supply-side factors that provide value-in-medical-travel to attract medical tourists to India.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the demand-side factors that influence the inbound medical tourists’ (MTs) decision to travel abroad for medical treatment/surgery. Design/methodology/approach The researchers conducted thematic analysis of in-depth interviews in India with 24 foreign MTs’ to generate the themes, identify factors and propose a model with hypothesis for future quantitative survey. Findings The findings conclude that patients ranked in ascending order less waiting time for surgery, healthcare quality and accreditation, staff/surgeons expertise, healthcare information, hospital facilities and services, patient safety, travel risk, surgical costs and holiday opportunity as important factors that influence the decision to travel abroad for medical treatment/surgery. Research limitations/implications Foreign patients from six private hospitals were willing to be interviewed with the permission of the hospital. Due to confidentiality and privacy policy, many hospitals declined interviews with foreign patients. Practical implications The findings are generalised in case of foreign patients as MTs and all private hospitals treating foreign patients in India and other global healthcare destinations. Policy implications suggest that private hospitals in developing countries need to provide first-class quality of healthcare as foreign patients look for internationally accredited quality, no waiting time, patient safety, qualified and experienced surgeons, healthcare workers education and experience hospital facilities and post-surgery care with positive healthcare outcomes. Originality/value There is little empirical research on the views of inbound MTs, about factors influencing their decision to travel abroad for surgery to India.

In the 21st century, tourism has become a popular economic development strategy adopted by developing countries. Among various facets of tourism, heritage tourism has been observed as the economically and commercially most viable option. Since countries with limited investment resources could invite foreign tourists to enjoy their heritage culture, history, arts, and music. However, heritage tourism in India and Pakistan has been observed as the neglected domain. The reasons for ignoring heritage tourism in India and Pakistan will be analyzed in this chapter with the purpose to identify challenges to preserve, conserve, develop, and promote built heritage tourism. Innovative transformation is suggested as the approach to develop, rejuvenate, and transform the tangible and intangible heritage tourism in India and Pakistan for reuse, social and economic prosperity of locals living around heritage sites, as well as to provide transformational experience to visitors.

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The aim of this chapter is to critically examine the latest development of medical tourism as an innovation in India. The existing theories and concepts in medical tourism are reviewed and synthesised in order to lay down a foundation for marketing managers to deploy marketing mix strategies to deliver values to the medical tourists. A secondary research method is adapted to gather relevant literature. This chapter not only provides a background introduction to the growing importance of the medical tourism industry to the Indian economy, but also makes major contributions: firstly, that global healthcare service marketing is quite different from marketing of other services and goods. Secondly, it proposes to examine the application of 8Ps of tourism marketing-mix along with another 6Ps, such as personalisation of healthcare, publication for patient, patient packaging, patient education, patient privacy, and patient medical and cultural sensitivities for effective marketing of the popular Indian wellness and medical tourism destinations, super-speciality hospitals, and complex diagnostic tests and surgeries to the world.

This chapter explores the emergence and development of Halal branded hospitals and medical facilities as a product of Medical Tourism for Muslim patients around the world and in India. Halal tourism is a sub-category of spiritual tourism, where one has to abide by the Sharia law to satisfy Muslim customers. The main objective of the chapter is to focus on a niche category of halal medical tourism, where Sharia rules are followed to attract the medical tourist mainly from Islamic countries. This chapter also proposes a typology of Muslim medical tourist's cultural sensitivities and recommends branding and certifying Halal Medical Tourism hospitals, healthcare facilities, pharmaceuticals, products, and services to attract Muslim patients, and provides challenges and opportunities with future research directions. The case studied in this chapter is of the Global Health City, the first Halal Certified Medical Hospital facility in Chennai, India. It presents a model for halal branding of Indian Medical Tourism based on the halal decision-making paradigm for Muslim customers designed by Wilson and Liu (2010). The model presented here indicates attitudes of being rational or emotional and elements reflecting affective and cognitive feelings for Muslim patients seeking halal treatment in halal hospitals.