Prioritization of the Factors for Selecting Medical Service in Korea: A Survey of Chinese Medical Experts

Abstract

Given economic development and the growth of income, the health-care and beauty industry is attracting much attention, which has increased fierce competition in the medical and beauty treatment service market. The objective of this study is to investigate the importance of the factors used to select medical and beauty treatment service in Korea. In order to assess the importance of the factors, this study applies the analytic hierarchy process. Based on the literature and an interview with an expert, this study identifies the key attributes of the medical and beauty treatment services. The decision hierarchic structure is divided into two levels: the first includes criteria such as medical treatment service, cost, and the hospital’s operating service and infra-structure; the other consists of eight subcriteria that depend on a higher-level criterion. The results of this study show that the most important criterion that Chinese tourists use to select a Korean hospital is medical skill, and that the priority of the hospital’s operating service is lower than the others. The findings of this study are expected to have practical implications for medical service providers as well as for tourism-related marketers for medical and beauty treatment in Korea.