Medical hotels in the growing healthcare business industry: Impact of international travelers' perceived outcomes

Abstract

Despite the international healthcare industry's rapid growth, little research exists about medical hotels. To fill this gap, this study identifies international patients' possible outcomes of staying in a medical hotel and investigates their intention formation by considering attitudes and desires as well as the perceived outcome's moderating impact. A qualitative approach identifies the possible outcomes of staying in a medical hotel, which can be distinctive from common medical/healthcare clinics, as perceived by international medical customers. Confirmatory factor analysis verifies a four-factor structure of the perceived outcome model (financial saving, convenience, medical service, and hospitality product). Structural equation modeling reveals that attitudes, desires, and intention significantly associate, and desires act as a mediator. Additionally, a metric invariance test shows that convenience, medical-service, and hospitality-product factors of the perceived outcomes significantly moderate forming intentions. Study results help medical hotel operators create effective strategies to attract more international tourists. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.