Innovation in Medical Tourism Service Marketing

Abstract

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.

Medical Tourism Development in Dubai: Managing Challenges and Opportunities

“…Health tourism has two segments: wellness and medical. Medical travel is influenced by socio-economic, cultural and political factors which determined the decision to choose an overseas hospital, country, based on costs, quality, waiting time, privacy and confidentiality, availability of treatment, specialists expertise and patient safety (Turner, 2011;Connell, 2013;Medhekar and Ali, 2012;Medhekar, Wong, and Hall, 2014).…”

“…There are various push factors that drive people to travel abroad for surgery, such as; long waiting list, high health and insurance costs, non-availability of medical surgery due to regulation, shortage of specialist medical staff, and ethical concerns. Whereas pull factors are affordable cost, no waiting list, uninsured and underinsured, JCI accreditation, English speaking and overseas educated surgeons, privacy and confidentiality, post-surgery care, state-of-the-art medical technology, language and cultural familiarity and being popular transit, sightseeing and shopping destination (Bookman and Bookman, 2007;Turner, 2011;Connell, 2013;Medhekar, et al, 2014).…”

“…Analyzing from the economic impact perspective, development of medical tourism will provide employment opportunities in medical, allied healthcare services and tourism sector which is specially designed and developed for medical patients/ travellers with illness, and also proving an important source of foreign exchange for the country (Medhekar et al, 2014;Medhekar and Haq, 2015). Diversifying into medical tourism, will also improve local public infrastructure, such as health, wheelchair access to tourism places and transport facilities which also benefits the locals.…”

“…To become a 'Global Healthcare Medi-City' Dubai should implement 14Ps of medical tourism healthcare patient-marketing-mix (Medhekar et al, 2014): i) Products-(medical-tangible and intangible) healthcare products; ii) Price-of medical travel and treatment to be competitive and affordable; iii) Place-of medical treatment-to develop JCI accredited medical faculties in all major cities of UAE; iv) Promotion-of all superspeciality of healthcare services available in UAE, which are JCI accredited to foreigners; v) Patient and Personalattract patients from all over the world, and quality of medical and non-medical staff; iv) Physical Proofof world-class medical facilities, with foreign trained doctors, international accreditation, medical equipment; vii) Process or Procedurerelated to information flow and process that a medical tourist is involved in various stages of interacting with the hospital and medical travel facilitator; viii), Public-Private Partnerships -(PPP) with world class medical schools, hospitals and pharmaceuticals, health and tourism industry for providing, and promoting world quality of global healthcare. ix) Personalization of patient healthcarewhich is tailor-made for each patient as per their health problems and requirements; x) Publications -of health and medical information or physical evidence of the corporate or brand logos, brochures, stationary and advertisement; xi) Patient Packagingwhere a medical tourist pays a combined price for various services packed together from start to end of the medical travel for consumers convenience; xii) Patient Educationwhere the websites of the hospitals provide information regarding the health care services, management of the disease; xiii) Patient Privacy -and confidentiality of patients and medical records xiv) Patient Health, Medical and Cultural Sensitivitiesfor example, provision of interpreting services, prayer room, food /dietary requirements, is essential for the overall sustainability of medical tourism business.…”

Health-care providers perspective on value in medical travel to India

“…International trade and travel in global health-care has grown exponentially in the twenty-first century, as patients seek affordable quality and "value-in-medical-travel" to developed and developing countries (Carrera, 2012;Hall, 2011;Medhekar et al, 2019;Wang, 2012). Travelling abroad for health tourism has two segments, namely, wellness (traditional-yoga, herbal-medicine and ayurveda) and medical (allopathy medicine, diagnostic and complex-surgery) (Medhekar et al, 2014). Medical travel/tourism (MTm) is an economic activity related to medical, tourism and transport sectors of the economy (Collins et al, 2019).…”