Brand image as the competitive edge for hospitals in medical tourism

Abstract

PurposeFollowing promising growth of the international medical tourism industry, competitions within the global market have escalated tremendously with increased involvement by numerous healthcare providers to acquire a share of its disposable income. The brand reputation would hereby play a determining role as a competitive strategy. Specifically, this paper aims to investigate the impact of social and marketing aspects on the brand image of medical tourism-based hospitals, alongside its relationship toward service quality. In turn, the influence of perceived service quality on satisfaction and the perceived value was examined, in view of further potential behavioral intention among medical tourists on healthcare providers in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected through a survey questionnaire among medical tourists, with 596 successful cases collected via 6 major private hospitals at 3 popular Malaysian medical tourism locations. Data analysis was then performed using both SPSS and Smart PLS software.FindingsThe findings from the present study acknowledged the importance of both social (e.g. social media and word-of-mouth communications) and marketing (e.g. hospital advertisement and price perception) aspects toward establishing brand image among medical tourism-based hospitals. Consequently, the brand image would influence perceived service quality among medical tourists; further entail positive impact on behavioral intention, with satisfaction and perceived value as mediators between both factors. Following PLS predict analysis confirming this model’s high predictive capability, it demonstrated close representation to actual medical tourism scenario in Malaysia.Originality/valueThis study is one of the very few studies that explored the minimally investigated territory on the consequential importance of hospital branding within the medical tourism industry; specifically through extending the literature on the influence of social and marketing efforts toward the formation of brand image.