Sustainable medical tourism service network with a stakeholder perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT Along with the challenges and disruptions faced in the COVID-19 outbreak, medical tourism is an emergent field of business bringing multiple sources of service providers to provide cross-border medical treatment with affordable costs and touristic activity opportunities. The sustainability of medical tourism is of paramount importance in terms of economic, social and environmental dimensions with a high level of collaboration, coordination, cooperation and integration of the stakeholders of this service network. Hence, the purpose of this study is to analyze the sustainability objectives of medical tourism service with a detailed stakeholder involvement. In this regard, medical tourism stakeholders are identified via a systematic review of literature and industrial reports, and next, the objectives associated with sustainability are described in detail, then, a novel Fermatean Fuzzy MACTOR (‘Matrix of Alliances and Conflicts: Tactics, Objectives and Recommendations’) is proposed to determine the triggering relationship between each stakeholder and to highlight the convergency of each stakeholder towards each objective. Hence, the findings reveal the major responsibilities of stakeholders to achieve each individual sustainability objective. The analysis results indicate that even if the main service providers fulfil their duties perfectly, in case of having language barrier, demand of medical tourists cannot be sustained.