Medical Tourism Behaviors of Chinese Tourists: A Case of Private Hospitals in Phuket

Abstract

The Thai government has focused on medical tourism since 2004 by establishing a policy to promote Thailand to become an international medical hub. The movement of medical tourism in Thailand is found in the government sector and is driven by medical services from private hospitals in Thailand. The Department of Health Service Support was also assigned to provide a development strategy for Phuket to be an international health center (Medical Hub). Therefore, the objectives were to study the factors influencing Chinese tourists who travel to Phuket for medical tourism. The theories and concepts about tourist behaviors guide analyzing patterns, purposes, and influencing factors to receive medical tourism services in this research, data collection located in Bangkok Hospital Phuket and Bangkok Hospital Siriroj. The key informant used in this study was 20 Chinese tourists who received medical tourism services, and the in-depth interview method was applied by collecting data. A case study of the qualitative research method was using semantic analysis data. The results presented the factors influencing Chinese tourists, who travel to Phuket for medical tourism, were marketing promotion of medical tourism products, motivation, buying decision–making by receiving medical tourism information, experience, attitude, evaluation of alternatives primarily based on price.