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

ackgrounds is expected to accomplish in this study as they are likely to have different
motivations and perceptions in seeking healthcare services
Aims of the Study
The present research project aims to explore the reasons why consumers from major Western
countries where English is the main language travel to Thailand for their medical treatment.
The research will investigate the motivations of potential medical tourists, differences in these
motivations among different groups both from the same and different countries,
interrelationships among these motivations, consumer choices in selecting a particular
treatment in Thailand over other medical tourism destinations, and the degree of tourism
participation of those medical tourists.
Research Questions
What are the significant motives that influence the decision of medical tourists from the US
and the UK to travel to Thailand, and to Bangkok Pattaya Hospital in particular?
How are these motives different with respect to age, nationality and gender?
How does Bangkok Pattaya Hospital perceive the consumer motivation from these countries?
To what extent does Bangkok Pattaya Hospital applied perceived consumer motivation to
service provision for medical tourists? How is a healthcare provider’s service provision
related to what motivates medical tourists to visit the hospital?
What are the major keys influencing consumer choices about provider and destination? Why
does a medical tourist choose one destination over another?
To what extent do medical tourists take tourism component as a part in their decision making
process?
Is medical tourism in Thailand about tourism? Is medical tourism likely to
utilise the tourism component?
What is it about the tourist part of medical tourism?
To what extent do medical tourists participate in tourism?
Research Rationale and Methodology
This research will consist of three stages of data collection: exploratory study (observations
and small interviews with patients in a first visit to hospital), designing the questionnaire, and
the main study (a second visit to hospital).
Rationale for selection of hospital
Bangkok Pattaya Hospital (BPH) was chosen as the study site for two principal reasons.
Firstly, it met the following parameters: segmenting foreigners as a major target market;
providing internationally standardised quality of hospital, medical treatment, facilities and
infrastructure, and management personnel to the foreign patients. Secondly, BPH’s major
target market is not expatriates only but also medical tourists both in contact with the hospital
directly and via the agents in their home countries. The major target market is medical tourists
from major Western countries such as Western Europe (e.g. UK) and US; Arabic countries
such as UAE and Oman; and Australia and New Zealand. It was thus felt that with the
resources available to the researcher, a study uncovering consumer motivation and a
healthcare provider response could adequately be tackled at this hospital.
Participant selection
Due to the researcher’s limitation of time and funding, only the medical tourist participants
from major Western countries where English is the main language, i.e. the UK and the US are