Health, Wellness and Tourism: healthy tourists, healthy business ...

value is not restricted to aspects related to price and quality but that it also combines other
functional, emotional and social aspects (Sweeney and Soutar, 2001). Sheth, Newmann and
Gross (1991) identified five consumption values that influence consumer choices, which are
functional, social, emotional, epistemic and conditional values. Sweeney and Soutar (2001)
developed a multiple-item scale for measuring consumer-perceived value (PERVAL). Four
dimensions of perceived value emerged, which are emotional, social, quality/performance and
price/value for money.
The perceived value of the Internet
The use of IT and especially the Internet in healthcare has the potential to change the
healthcare industry worldwide in terms of infrastructure, costs and quality of services
(Wickramasinghe and Goldberg, 2004; Wickramasinghe and Mirsa, 2004). The Internet has
especially become an important medium for marketers and healthcare providers to provide
information and market a wide variety of health care services and products (Bodkin and
Miaoulis, 2007). It has been confirmed that perceived value has a big impact on the use of the
Internet as a medium for the search and procurement of goods. In general, people seeking
information related to health care may act on several motives (Williams et al. 2003). They
may be searching for information as a health care professional, as a consumer looking for a
self-diagnosis or other diagnosis, as a patient to complement information from a doctor, as a
consumer to exchange information with peers or for general interest browsing. Consumers
access online health information in three primary ways: searching directly for health
information, consulting with health professionals and participating in online support groups
(Clines and Haynes, 2001)
Method
Through a qualitative study, we explore the concept of customer-perceived value in a medical
tourism context. We choose netnography as a research methodology because it has been
acknowledged that consumers making product and brand choices are increasingly turning to
computer-mediated communication for information on which to base their purchasing
decisions (Kozinets, 2002). Medical tourists are using forums, chat rooms and blogs to
exchange large amounts of information, share ideas, look for advice, and make contact with
other patients who have experienced a medical tourism adventure. Netnography is a research
method that taps into this huge amount of information by analyzing the exchanges of
members of online virtual communities. On the basis of the criteria developed by Kozinets
(2002), such as the high traffic of posts and the relevance and richness of the data exchanged
among members, we decided to work on the virtual community of Doctissimo. We used nonparticipant
observation, only reading the posts of members with no intervention, and
participant observation by participating in conversations and inducing new discussions.
Findings
A thematic analysis was conducted. The choice of categories to be studied was made
according to the method developed by Miles and Huberman (1991). Based on the
consumption value theory of Sheth, Newman and Gross (1991), a thematic analysis of posts 1
has allowed us to highlight different dimensions of perceived value related, on one hand, to
the medical tourism service and, on the other hand, to the use of the Internet in the same
context.
1 We decided to keep the spelling and grammar mistakes to give more credence to the talk of participants.