Journal of Global Marketing

Medical Tourism: Global Services Marketing Perspectives

The emergence of medical tourism as a global phenomenon has given rise to a rapidly expanding industry where patients seek medical services across international borders, often for reduced costs, specialized expertise and technology, or timelier service. With international tourism returning to 96% of pre-pandemic levels according to the World Tourism Barometer (UN Tourism, 2024), medical tourism has resumed its exponential growth as patients seek medical services that are unavailable, illegal, less expensive, require a substantial waiting period, or lower quality in their home country.

As healthcare services expand beyond national boundaries, the medical tourism industry raises significant concerns. Medical tourism providers face the complex task of marketing their services to a diverse and often vulnerable patient population. Unlike other industries, the marketing of medical tourism services involves practices that directly impact patient trust (Xu et al., 2020), data privacy (Nouhaila et al., 2024), cultural sensitivity (Xu et al., 2020), and respect for diverse patient values (Ekiyor & Gök, 2022). Medical tourism also poses a serious threat to patient safety and public health. Destination countries may find that medical tourism reduces access to care for residents or diverts healthcare resources from local populations. Moreover, medical tourism, by nature, combines healthcare services with travel, drawing patients from varying cultural and socio-economic backgrounds having limited familiarity with the healthcare provider’s practices and the medical standards of the destination country (Kemppainen et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2022; Isabel & Zizaldra-Hernández, 2024). As such, providers face the challenge of marketing services transparently and responsibly while acknowledging and accommodating these cultural differences. Issues in customer service, consumer decision-making, and ethical concerns in medical tourism marketing are multi-dimensional, as patients rely heavily on clear, accurate, and accessible information to make well-informed choices regarding their health (Kelly, 2023). At the same time, global marketing practices need to balance the drive to attract international patients with a commitment to responsible advertising, patient data security, and respect for cultural diversity.

Therefore, this special issue is dedicated to the services marketing perspective in medical tourism, offering actionable strategies for healthcare providers and marketing professionals to adopt effective, patient-centric, ethical, and culturally sensitive practices. It aims to address fundamental aspects of marketing in medical tourism, such as advertising transparency, handling of sensitive patient data, and the imperative for culturally informed marketing strategies. Subsequently, focusing on these essential areas, the issue seeks to:

1. equip healthcare providers with the knowledge needed to successfully and responsibly promote their services within an increasingly competitive and complex global medical tourism marketplace,
2. help tourism marketers consider the implications of promoting travel to receive medical services, and
3. provide public policymakers with insights needed to deal with the challenges and dilemmas of protecting patient safety and public health while encouraging beneficial outcomes arising from medical tourism.

Objectives include helping medical tourism providers effectively and responsibly market their services. The special issue will primarily explore how to improve the customer experience and service delivery in medical tourism (e.g., relationship marketing, effective communication, informed decision-making,  and patient satisfaction and loyalty). This issue should also empower patients to make better healthcare choices and safeguard their health, rights, and well-being.

Healthcare information is one of the most sensitive forms of personal data. Medical tourism providers, who collect and manage vast amounts of patient information, face challenges in data security, global data transfers, and compliance with varying national data protection regulations. Therefore, another objective of this special issue is to examine the services marketing implications of transparency in storing, processing, and protecting patient data in cross-border medical tourism, ensuring that patients understand and trust how their information is managed.

Additionally, this special issue will explore cultural sensitivity in medical tourism marketing, recognizing that its global nature demands a nuanced approach to a diverse patient base. Patients have varying cultural backgrounds, healthcare expectations, and health beliefs and values. Thus, marketing practices should reflect this diversity and promote cultural sensitivity, which involves creating communication strategies that respect and align with the cultural norms of various patient groups while avoiding stereotypes or misrepresentations (Anjum & Aziz, 2024). Improved cultural competence should enhance the quality of care and health outcomes in medical tourism; bolster patient trust and satisfaction; and reduce racial, ethnic, and geographic health disparities. Fundamentally, culturally respectful marketing supports the sustainability and reputation of medical tourism providers and strengthens their operations in international markets.

Proposed Themes for the Special Issue

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the themes and examples listed below:

Issues in Medical Tourism Services Pricing

• Understanding the impact of pricing strategies on patients’ evaluations and behaviors
• Unethical pricing practices (e.g., kickbacks, cost discrepancies, hidden costs, fraud, information asymmetry regarding medical costs)

Transparency Issues with Medical Tourism Services Marketing

• Pricing transparency; candid information about treatment options, post-procedural care, and travel logistics; and service quality disclosures in global medical tourism marketing and its implications for patient experience, trust, and satisfaction
• Transparency issues in information on medical equipment, physical aspects, healthcare providers, and procedures

Medical Tourism Advertising and Promotion

• Evaluating advertising effectiveness and impact on patient decision-making
• Exploring ethical concerns related to exaggeration and deceptive advertising and the potential exploitation of vulnerable patients in promotional materials
  • Exploring issues related to promotional strategies (e.g., discount, cost-saving, payment assistance, deceptive promotions, unrealistic service promises) and message strategies (e.g., message source, message appeal, message structure)

Marketing Strategies for Global Medical Tourism in the Age of Digital Platforms

• Exploring issues in the cross-border digital promotion of medical tourism, particularly concerning influencer endorsements, reviews, and social media advertising

Equity and Access in Host Country: Impact of Medical Tourism on Local Healthcare Systems

• Analyzing how the promotion of medical tourism affects access to healthcare for local populations and the issues around prioritizing tourists over residents
• Assessing the impact of diverting health resources to medical tourists on medical cost and quality

Equity and Access in Global Distribution of Healthcare Services

• Equitable availability of medical tourism services to those with limited access to healthcare, without adequate insurance coverage, with lower socioeconomic status, or without modern medical facilities available in their home countries or geographic regions

Cultural Sensitivity and Patient Communication in Medical Tourism

• Examining how medical tourism providers navigate cultural diversity, respect religious beliefs, address language barriers, and communication practices when marketing to an international clientele

Regulatory Variability and Service Standards in Medical Tourism

• Examining the challenges of differing regulations and standards across countries and how medical tourism marketers should address this variability
  • Investigating issues with service quality standards, service failure, complaint handling, and service recovery process

Patient Privacy and Data Security in Cross-Border Medical Tourism

• Examining how medical tourism providers safeguard sensitive patient data and the challenges of maintaining privacy and ensuring confidentiality of medical records in the international healthcare services context

Patient Consent in Medical Tourism

• Investigating how informed consent is handled across cultures and languages and the challenges in ensuring patients understand the benefits and risks of treatments and procedures

Legal and Ethical Accountability of Medical Tourism Providers for Managing Post-Care Complications and Treatment

• Examining the legal and ethical responsibilities of medical tourism providers to manage complications and follow-up care and the impact on patient welfare once they return home

Consequences of Medical Tourism in Patients’ Home Countries

• Investigating the impact of resources used to treat postoperative complications on the healthcare system
• Assessing potential risks to the public due to exposure to infectious diseases from medical tourism destinations

Medical Tourism and the Challenges of Outsourcing Healthcare

• Investigating the implications of patients traveling abroad for affordable healthcare and its effect on quality perceptions and trust in healthcare services

The Role of Intermediaries in Medical Tourism Referrals

• Assessing the practices of agencies and intermediaries in directing patients to specific destinations, hospitals, or healthcare providers and their impact on patient autonomy

Balancing Profit with Patient Well-Being in Medical Tourism Business Models

• Analyzing the tension between profit motives and quality of care provided to patients and strategies for fostering patient-centric marketing

Implications of Medical Tourism for High-Risk Procedures

• Investigating the concerns of promoting and offering high-risk or experimental procedures to international patients who may lack other options

Patient Safety

• Patient safety concerns due to medical malpractice or complications without appropriate follow-up care, inadequate infection control practices, falsified medications, and inadequate screening and treatment

Environmental Issues in Medical Tourism Development and Promotion

• Analyzing the environmental impact of developing infrastructure for medical tourism and how sustainability concerns are addressed

Medical Tourism for Cosmetic vs. Essential Procedures

• Examining the distinctions between medical tourism for elective cosmetic surgeries versus essential or life-saving procedures

Regulations and Enforcement

• Developing or assessing standardized international guidelines and regulations for medical tourism marketing
• Evaluating the performance of regulatory and enforcement bodies with regard to protecting consumer welfare and ensuring that medical tourism providers adhere to ethical and legal guidelines.

Patient Decision Making

• Examining the drivers of patient choice of medical tourism providers and destinations
• Exploring influences of patient journey on patient decision making

Other Issues Related to Any of the 7 Ps (product, price, place, promotion, people, process, physical evidence) of Services Marketing

Authors are invited to submit studies that make substantial practical, theoretical, methodological, or public health advances. While this special issue is primarily open to quantitative studies, we welcome systematic reviews/meta-analyses. Studies that take an interdisciplinary approach are also of interest for this special issue.

(for list of references, please contact the Guest Editors)