Abstract
The Asia-Pacific region is known as a favorite destination for global medical travelers due to its medical expertise, innovative technology, safety, attractive tourism destination and cost advantage in the recent decade. This study contributes to propose an approach which effectively assesses performance of medical tourism industry based on considering the economic impact factors as well as provides a conceptual framework for the industry analysis. Grey system theory is utilized as a major analyzing approach. According to that, factors impact on the sustainable development of medical tourism in Asia-Pacific region could be identified. The performance of each destination in this region was simultaneously revealed. The results presented an overall perspective of the medical tourism industry in the scope of the Asia-Pacific region, and in Taiwan particularly. Data was collected on six major destinations including Singapore, Thailand, India, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan. The results proved that tourism sources and healthcare medical infrastructures play a crucial role in promoting the healthcare travel industry, while cost advantage and marketing effectiveness were less considered. In addition, performance analyse indicated that Thailand has a good performance and stands in the top ranking, followed by Malaysia, India, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, respectively. The revenue of Taiwan has increased slowly in the last six years, with a market worth approximately NT$20.5 billion, and the number of medical travelers is expected to increase to 777,523 by 2025. The findings of this study are expected to provide useful information for the medical tourism industry and related key players in strategic planning.
Highlights
The service of healthcare and medical treatment combined with travelling namely “medical tourism” or “healthcare travelling” is a special green industry which has a long history in some developed countries such as Hungary, Belgium, Turkey, and Poland
Taking the aims to Taking the above above issues issues into into consideration, consideration, this this study study aims to propose propose an an approach approach which which effectively assesses performance of the medical tourism industry based on a consideration of the effectively assesses performance of the medical tourism industry based on a consideration of the economic impact factors
The Asia-Pacific region is known as a common medical tourism destination which is successful at attracting global medical travelers and is placed sixth of the world’s top ten
Summary
The service of healthcare and medical treatment combined with travelling namely “medical tourism” or “healthcare travelling” is a special green industry which has a long history in some developed countries such as Hungary, Belgium, Turkey, and Poland. Medical tourism is believed to be a service which is combined between medical services and tourism activities It was defined as travelling activities outside of patients’ home countries to receive medical care [1] or obtain non-emergency medical services [2]. This industry has been rising in the last two decades in the world based on the development of the international commercial activities and special treatment demands abroad. Public Health 2020, 17, 961; doi:10.3390/ijerph17030961 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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