• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.391-397
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• 2014

This paper is concerned with medical tourism, which is expected to become the new growth engine of the 21st century. Medical tourism is a collaborative and synergistic composition of Healthcare and Tourism, and has led to a remarkable growth in 2012 since the year 2009, exhibiting huge growth potential. This paper reviews the emerging market of the medical tourism with five major hospitals in Korea from the perspective of medical tourists, and makes suggestions for the global health care and the sustainable development in Korean medical tourism as a growth market: the construction of websites for active services and transparent management of medical expenses with proper arrangement of medical consulting and advices, cooperation of the health care center and the medical tourism industry, and the activation of healthcare communication. For the smooth progress of medical tourism, this paper suggests two separate communication channels: one for the patient tourists and the other for the medical tourism coordinators. The former needs accuracy with professional knowledge on the healthcare and communication, which should be classified as medical interpreters working with disease-oriented medical tourists. The latter refers to international medical coordinators dedicated to the smooth progress of medical tourism and services. This paper also points out the creative efforts to improve the relatively poor infrastructure of tourism industry to accommodate the medical tourists, and improve the medical tourism industry.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.3-25
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• 2013

With the ever-changing medical tourist environment, the study has delved into issues ranging from judged value on medical tourist service quality and its effect on the service level and recurring rate of return visit through the quantitative analysis with the survey for a group of tourists from Japan, China, USA and the interview survey on medical specialist on tourists. Verifying the Hypothesis 1 reveals the assertion that quality of medical service for tourists has effected upon the functional value has proven to be true except the cases on responsiveness and accessibility. And the assumption that the quality of medical service for tourists has effected upon the emotional value has proven to be true except the case on accessibility. The paper has its limitation in that it is confined to medical tourists of small numbers of target countries, relatively short survey period. The study shall be followed by the further analysis on the factors for medical tourists' personal and societal effect

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.299-308
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• 2014

Nowadays, dental tourism becomes phenomenon because of its cost-effectiveness, improvement of quality and technology, dental infrastructure, and attractive tourism. Korea as one of popular destination country had established dental system. On the other hand, Indonesia with high number of population is potential market for dental tourism. The aim of this study is to compare the knowledge, attitude, and experience towards dental tourism among Indonesian and Korean. Two cross-sectional descriptive surveys were conducted to collect the data. This study was used one questionnaire in two different languages due to nature of the study population. Data from a total 923 of Indonesian from 33 provinces in Indonesia was collected during the period from April through July 2010. On the other hand, during May until August 2010 data from a total of 312 Korean were obtained. It was found that the majority of participants in both countries had never heard about dental tourism. Among those who had heard about dental tourism, the most common source was internet. Ownership of dental insurance had significant relationship with knowledge of dental tourism among Indonesian while level of education and monthly internet usage had it among Korean (p<0.05). Attitudes of Indonesian and Korean people about dental tourism were negative due to assumption that dental services in their home country were satisfactory. 100% of Korean had no experience on dental treatment in other countries while 2.4% of Indonesian had experience with it. In conclusion, regarding all these evidences, comprehensive and positive information about dental tourism is needed to enhance people's knowledge, attitude, and experience.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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• 2016.05a
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• pp.289-290
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• 2016

의료관광은 전 세계적으로 고부가가치 산업으로 각광 받고 있으며, 우리나라 지자체들도 의료관광 활성화를 위해 치열한 경쟁을 벌이고 있다. 이에 본 연구는 안동시 의료관광 활성화에 중요한 평가항목 요인들의 구성요소들의 우선순위를 도출하는데 그 목적이 있다. 분석결과 상위계층에서는 인프라, 중위계층에서는 의료서비스에 대한 신뢰성이 가장 중요한 요인으로 도출되었다.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.75-80
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• 2018

Since the introduction of the Foreign Patient Assistance Law in 2009, more than 300,000 foreign patients are visiting Korea each year due to the efforts of overseas patient attraction organizations, host companies and governments. Despite these achievements, however, the company is confronted with limitations in product development and the rate of patient population growth is slowing. Therefore, this study suggests the importance and meaning of various product development through the hierarchical analysis (AHP) on the major factors of product development of medical tourism services, and suggests direction of product development in domestic medical tourism industry in the future.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.385-394
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• 2013

Recently, as the healthcare market is globalized, the importance of the information on the Internet has been recognized. In this study, the analysis by research model with hypothesis that benefit sought factors of health tourism have a positive effect on behavioral intention of destination selection through tourism brand equity by internet information was carried out. As a result of analysis, benefit sought factors like as health and beauty did not have a positive effect on brand cognition and perceived quality but benefit sought factors like as service and nature had a positive effect on brand cognition and perceived quality. However, benefit sought like as experience did not have a positive effect on brand cognition and perceived quality. And brand equity like as brand cognition and perceived quality had a positive effect on behavioral intention. Thus, according to the results of these hypotheses, policies that foster health tourism in Jeju region will be followed based on product development that considering the importance of the existing service and cognition.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.1052-1059
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• 2009

Health care has become one of the paramount issues of the 21st century as governments and individuals grapples the complex problems associated with contemporary medical care such as cost, affordability, and shifting demographic trends. The purpose of this study was to develop the critical success factors of medical tourism for health-care organizations and to measure the wights of these factors. For this purpose, we gathered the data from doctors, travelling agencies and scholars. about the success factors of medical tourism. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to determine the factors as the Critical Success Factors of medical tourism. We did also the research to evaluate the validity and reliability of these factors. After that the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to analyze the weight and significances among these factors. Factor analysis resulted in 15 major factors (Eigenvalue > 1.0). The AHP analysis showed the list of Critical Success Factors weighted by its significance priorities. The recommendable degree of reliability and validity suggests that these factors could be the valuable refences for the policy making process of the medical tourism in Korea.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.555-557
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• 2018

The average lifespan of humans is expected to rise to 100 years, not 80 years, as a result of the advances in medical technology, and soon the age of 100 era is expected to open. The fourth industrial revolution, which is the core of the convergence, is emerging as a major issue in the modern society. Therefore, the importance of services along with medical technologies is increasing. Accordingly, medical tourism, a combination of medical technology and tourism, is emerging as a promising industry, and countries around the world classify the medical tourism industry as one of the core strategic industries and nurture it actively. In accordance with this, contents and marketing that can impress a user with a management strategy are developed and provided, but the management system maintains the existing ones, which is a limitation. Therefore, there is a need for an efficient medical tourism management system along with a user-oriented system such as marketing and contents.

• 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.