Abstract
Dental tourism is a growing and emerging phenomenon that is becoming more attractive to patients due to its potential for decreased expenses, increased convenience, and immediacy of treatment. The necessity for travel is the primary motivation for seeking dental treatment due to the successful cooperation between tourism and healthcare. While dental tourism has been largely researched from the perspective of the patient, our research is the first research to apply a concomitant approach on dental clinics and tourism agencies. The aim of our study wasto provide comprehensive empirical evidence from the perspective of the dental clinics and tourism agencies in Romanian dental tourism. We used a representative sampling with an online questionnaire on 160 dental clinics and 32 tourism agencies. The results indicate that both entities have small amounts of information, but they are interested in investing, promoting, and creating a partnership to create a sustainable industry of dental tourism. Dental tourism could strongly contribute to the country’s image and help to prolong the seasonality of tourism activity by enhancing the strategic marketing of dental clinics and tourism agencies toward sustainable health tourism.
Highlights
Medical tourism is a term that describes seeking medical treatment in another country [1], and it is defined [2] as the process of leaving home for treatments and care abroad or elsewhere domestically.Medical tourism is a relatively new phenomenon [3] and it is considered to be the most important component of trade in health services [4,5]
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Regarding the concrete investments for the development of a dental tourism program, the distribution indicates that 100% engaged in advertising, promotions, and direct marketing, 0% engaged in training or supplementing the existing staff of the tourism agencies, and 0% engaged in other types of investments. These results demonstrate that Romanian dental clinics are shifting toward a market-oriented strategy and developing efficient programs by adopting patient satisfaction [27]
Summary
Medical tourism is a term that describes seeking medical treatment in another country [1], and it is defined [2] as the process of leaving home for treatments and care abroad or elsewhere domestically.Medical tourism is a relatively new phenomenon [3] and it is considered to be the most important component of trade in health services [4,5]. Medical tourism is a peculiar tourism phenomenon that took on a global characteristic due to the increase of tourists’ mobility [7], the economic implications [8], the economic changes that are beneficial in some developing countries [9], and the potentially significant implications for global public health [10]. In 2016, Croatia had travel receipts of 18.6% relative to GDP, Albania 14.2%, Bulgaria 6.8%, Hungary 4.5%, and Poland 2.3%,whileRomania had travel receipts of only 0.9% relative to GDP with a negative balance of payments
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