Factors Affecting the Choice of Medical Tourism Destination: A Case Study of Medical Tourists from the Arab Region in Turkey

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to identify the aspects that are considered relatively more important by medical tourists from the Arab world as well as Turkish healthcare providers’ ability to perform these tasks and functions well. Additionally, patients from the Arab world were asked for their reasons for seeking care abroad and the factors affecting their choice of destination (Turkey). Each of the parameters’ importance–performance scores that were collected from medical tourists through a structured questionnaire were analysed by their positions on the importance–performance analysis (IPA) graph. The IPA demonstrated that eight out of 17 aspects of medical services were considered very important by patients and were delivered with high degree of performance by a facility. Seven of the parameters were in ‘low priority—Quadrant 3’, which means that providers performed relatively poorly in these areas and patients did not consider these as important as well. Only one of the parameters was in low importance–high performance area and one other was in high importance–low performance area. The attributes of medical tourism patients found by the analysis may help Turkish healthcare providers to identify the aspects that should be strengthened to improve customer satisfaction.