Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-1-2011

Publication Title

Tourism Management

Volume

32

Issue Number

4

First Page

709

Last Page

716

DOI

10.1016/j.tourman.2010.02.008

Keywords

Medical tourism, Medical facilitators, Medical travel facilitators, Health tourism

Disciplines

Hospitality Administration and Management | Tourism | Tourism and Travel

Abstract

The growing trend of traveling outside of one's country for medical services, commonly known as “medical tourism” is expected to continue to grow exponentially in the next ten years (Keckley, 2008). With multiple destinations from which to select, and available information representing this type of travel being of variable reliability, many prospective medical travelers turn to the use of a “medical tourism facilitator”, who perform a variety of trip coordination responsibilities for the medical traveler. These medical tourism facilitators, themselves a new phenomenon to support travel to various global regions, may operate within the traveler's home country or the destination region. This study explores the services offered on medical tourism facilitators' websites to the prospective traveler. Through the application of correspondence analysis, it was discovered that differences in both website content and in services offered varied by the continent upon which the facilitator operated. With little yet known as to the motivations of a medical traveler in the selection of a specific destination, these discovered differences may be a first insight into regional differences that may play a role in such destination selection.

Comments

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in Tourism Management, 2011 in Volume 32, Issue 4. Find the published version of this article at this link.

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