Medical Tourism for Cosmetic Procedures

Abstract

Medical tourism, especially cosmetic surgery in South Korea, is popular amongst Thai youths. Like their counterparts around the world, they rely on web resources—in particular, online health discussion forums typically offering many features—to research cosmetic surgery providers. However, these forums are not without challenges. This chapter conducted lab experiments with 207 business school students to assess the impact of these forums along with their 16 features on credibility assessment of service providers. The results show that the reliability of web information is critical in enhancing the credibility of both doctors and hospitals, and social influence is important for doctor credibility but not hospital credibility. In addition, only certain types of forum features impact the credibility assessment of cosmetic surgery providers.