• 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.

• 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.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.345-362
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• 2010

It is necessary to develop new competitive products under the world economic downturn. The medical tourism industry a good example and it has grown rapidly for last couple of years. This paper aims to investigate socio-demographic proxies of inbound medical tourists in Korea. In particular, the medical tourist behaviors are modeled by considering the factors such as acquisition process of medical tourism information, service level of medical tourism industry and the choice attributes. The results of this study are summarized that: 1) Moot inbound medical tourists are over 40-years old with professional occupation accompanied with families; 2) The information resources are mainly acquired from travel agents and WOM(Word of Mouth) such as friends and relatives; 3) Current problems are lack of various promotion channels and the competitiveness of medical coots; 4) The inbound medical tourists are not homogeneous but vary in different segments. The study suggests that various marketing strategies should be implemented for target market segments to promote Korea as a medical tourism hub.