• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.307-329
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• 2014

Medical tourism involves patients intentionally leaving their home country to access non-emergency health care services abroad. Growth in the popularity of this practice has resulted in a significant amount of attention being given to it from researchers, policy-makers, and the media. Yet, there has been little effort to systematically synthesize what is known about the effects of this phenomenon and key choice factors. This study seeks to figure out, using conjoint analysis, what factors Chinese medical tourists place importance on maximizing utility when selecting their destination and propose selection attributes that can lure medical tourists to Korea. Results showed that, of destination attributes, medical technology competitiveness proved be the most important and of lower levels, international accreditation proved to have the highest utility. This article presents the findings of valuable insights to medical institutions, travel agencies and related firms in their marketing activities.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.102-109
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• 2019

Despite of advanced plans from Korean government to encourage Korean medical tourism, the medical tourism in Korea is still under competitive compared to the countries including Thailand, Singapore, and India, in which the government has been driving the development in industries of medical tourism, Moreover, the studies identifying the factors affecting tourists' satisfaction has not been actively performed up to date. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the influences of quality of medical service, accessibility, cost adequacy, and quality of tourism of Korean medical tourism on Chinese tourists' satisfaction and revisit intention. For the purpose of empirical study, a survey has been conducted to Chinese medical tourists. Findings are as follows. First, the factors of medical tourism attributes including quality of medical service, cost adequacy, and quality of tourism have turned out to have positive effects on medical tourists' satisfaction. Second, tourists' satisfaction has a positive effect on revisit intention.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.687-711
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• 2009

This research was conducted to explore the factors that cause medical tourists' dissatisfaction, and find ways to solve the tourists' problems by researching on the relationship between the service recovery and the failure of medical services. Also, the research has put more emphasis on establishing marketing strategies that enable Japanese medical tourists to actively visit Korea, and finding out the effects that the medical tourists satisfaction and trust have on their behavioral intentions, recommendations, and positive feedbacks. The summary of the research analysis results as follows. First, the service recovery after the service failure has positive influences on the medical tourist's satisfaction. Second, the service recovery has proven its positive influences on the tourists' trusts and behavioral intentions. Third, the satisfaction of the service recovery has built the mutual trust between the tourists' and the medical center, and this has positive influences on the customer's behavioral intentions. Finally, the research was conducted to analyze the moderating effects on the relationship between the service recovery and the recovery satisfaction. It was found that the medical service failure recognition type has proven no moderating effects.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.382-393
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• 2008

Tourism Industry can be treated as means for activating the economy of regions and must be considered as new alternative. As this trend, recently. the interest of tourism area connected with health industry is increasing gradually. And so, this study investigated the domestic abroad cases and established the promotion model of health tourism through experts' opinion to push ahead health tourism as strategy industry of Jeju region. Also this study proposed the planning to improve the competition ability of Jeju region by executing the fundamental research through the survey focused on tourists.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.107-135
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• 2016

Medical tour can be said to be a new high added-value tour industry of 21st century. The development of varied and distinguished medical tour products by each country will further vitalize the medical tour industry. As the interest in such medical tour increases, it is necessary to analyze the demand and interests of tourists accurately and prepare medical tour products to be provided in order to develop and promote medical tour products. The government considers the medical tour industry as an industry with high expected effects in job creation through promotion of experts in global healthcare industry and national economy development through high added-value creation, and has expanded aid policies in medical tour field with improvement of medical tour immigration system, one-stop service system for medical tourists, and medical tour labor force promotion system. Nevertheless, there are disputes between foreign patients and medical tour inviting businesses, along with medical accident disputes between foreign patients and medical staff and disputes with those working in the tourism industry. This article reviews the types of disputes occurring around the inviting businesses related to medical tours and tried to review the resolutions. Through this, it was found that medical tour inviting businesses have the responsibility to connect the mediated benefits and risks and also the responsibility to process the tasks. Thus, in case dispute occurs due to passive actions from establishing agency agreement to active mediation results, it is difficult to escape the liabilities. Also, in a medical tour agency contract, the inviting business must be aware that it bears the responsibility to explain and advise the details on benefits and risks to foreign patients. The "Guide to arbitration system for resolution of medical disputes with foreign patients" by Korea Health Industry Development Institute Act presents a method to resolve disputes according to the [laws on medical accident damage relief and medical dispute arbitration] in case a dispute due to medical accidents occurs to foreign patients when the foreign patients prepare diagnosis agreement, Whether such method is sufficient to protect foreign patients, however, is thought to require discussions from more diverse perspectives. In order to vitalize medical tourism, the development of diverse products is also important, but the countermeasures against related disputes should also be prepared. Such is expected to contribute to a greater advancement based on trust of foreign medical tourists alongside excellent medical technologies.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.53-62
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• 2017

This study was to find the factors influencing satisfaction of Korean medical tour services of Chinese college students. Structured questionnaire was developed to collect data. The data were collected from the 175 students between May 1 and May 15 in 2015 in an international college in China. The expectations and the evaluations on the Korean medical tour services were compare by t-test. To find the factors influencing satisfaction on Korean medical tour services, diverse linear regression models were estimated. According to the best fit regression model, technologies, quality of medical tour services, and health care cost significantly and positively influenced satisfaction on the Korean medical tour services. The results of the study suggested that we need to prepare marketing strategies to improve understandings on Korean medical tour services for the Chinese college students. Improvement of technology, improvement of quality of health service, and setting of reasonable price are important to attract more Chinese patients to Korea.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.438-447
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• 2012

The objectives of this research are: to provide fundamental data for tourism policy and investigate medical tourism attributes by IPA(Importance-Performance Analysis) to attract Japanese medical tourists to Korea. Utilizing Japanese medical tourists as subjects of inquiry, this study evaluated the importance of medical tourism selection attributes and the rate at which these attributes were performed. Consequently, this study deduced 'convenience, service quality, differentiation, approximation' factors by factor analysis as well as the ranking among each selection attributes using T-test. The importance-performance analysis showed 'Concentrate Here' in quadrant I, 'Keep up the Good Work' in quadrant II, 'Low Priority' in quadrant III and 'Possible Overkill' in quadrant IV. The results show that "Concentrate Here" part in quadrant I is reservation procedure rapidity and information system simplicity. This means that these attributes are very important but they indicate low performance. Thus, concentration among tourism managers should be focused along these attributes. The study, then, suggests that employee who speaks Japanese fluently should be arranged during reservation procedure. Furthermore, Japanese class should become mandatory during basic employee training to improve reservation procedure rapidity. Moreover, clinic websites should concentrate on accessibility of Japanese users in such a way that they can consult their needs on line. Finally, managers should find diverse ways to bring about good service rapidly and conveniently.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.1478-1488
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to forecast which factors provided satisfaction for the foreign medical tourist. The study concluded that the following key factors most affected the satisfaction of medical tourism: total travel budget, number of visits for medical services, occupation, education, monthly household income, budget for medical expenses, and the visiting period. Overall satisfaction of medical tourism explained was 43.5%. The influence of satisfaction on medical tourism through a word-of-mouth and the revisit intention was significant. These conclusions suggest that overall satisfaction with medical tourism based on this study's key factors may be an important factor for increasing the word-of-mouth and the revisit intention by the medical tourist in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.99-109
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• 2014

Airline and medical industry in Korea have rapidly grown since 21st century. However, air ambulance service using an aircraft has not as popular as in Japan, Europe or United States. Central government has decided to start emergency helicopter service since 2011 to transport emergency patients transported in the past by fire fighter helicopter. Unfortunately, 32 OECD countries out of 33 have operated emergency aircraft system except Korea. There are more than 25 emergency helicopters in Japan, which can operate within five minutes. Such system could save a lot of social direct or in-direct cost by saving valuable lives of Japan citizens. This paper has tried to research the perception of overseas Russian medical tourists on using Air ambulance for their medical tourism to Korea. Researching air ambulance, this paper expects to find ways to enhance both medical tourism industry and airline, business jet industry. According to research results, it was proven that tangibility of medical tourism service has a positive effect on the human factor of air ambulance. The human factor has also a significant impact on the passenger comfortableness of air ambulance. Such comfortableness increases the overall satisfaction of medical tourism.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.560-568
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• 2016

In Korea, management support has been given at the government level for activities to attract foreign patients. China and Russia ranked on top of the lists for in-bound medical tourists. The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of medical tourists in Korea, the demand for information, and the level of satisfaction regarding their experiences. 100 cases of medical tourists from China and Russia were collected through the mail survey. While Chinese used beauty, skin-care related products, Russian experienced the grocery shopping and wellness related services. Most patients from both nationalities experienced the traditional food in Korea and wanted to know about beauty products. Chinese wanted to get more information about Korean traditional food Russian. Finally, Russian showed higher overall satisfaction scores than Chinese respondents. If we reflect these results as a contents, it can be useful to attract foreign patients.