Medical Tourism: An Empirical Study of Perceived Value as Medical Tourism Driver in Indonesia

ANDI ANUGERAH AMRULLAH, Peter Forte

2015 | Skripsi | MANAJEMEN

The rapidly growing healthcare industry has opened numerous opportunities for medical institutions to attract potential patients from around the globe. Many countries in Latin America such as Mexico, Argentina, and Asia such as India, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand has reap the benefits as many visitors came to spend their money for medical tourism activities. Not only does this increase the country’s income from healthcare industry expenditures, but also from leisure-based activities due to the increase in visitors to the country. Therefore, the presence of medical tourism would bring multiple benefits to that country. This concept however, does not apply for countries which involvement in medical tourism industry is only as exporter of patients. Indonesia, as one of the biggest country in the world in terms of population offers a potential market for the medical tourism industry in its neighboring countries (i.e. Malaysia, Singapore). As much as 600,000 Indonesian citizens traveled abroad for medical purposes in 2012, spending over $1.4 billion in expense. In order to stop the lost of patients, Indonesian governments along with experts in healthcare business need to address the factors that motivates their patients to flew to another country to seek for medical treatment. This research attempts to identify factors that motivate Indonesian people to go abroad for medical purposes, and further test it using Wang (2012) model of perceived value in medical tourism to ensure the significance of the factors.

The gradually increasing number of Indonesian citizen who travel overseas for medical treatment has resulted in an opportunity cost for the national economy as it has lost potential income (from escaping patients) to neighboring countries. Therefore, this research will try to assess the motivational factors that drive people to perform medical tourism by using a model of perceived value to determine the relationship of each factor toward customer intention in medical tourism.

Kata Kunci : perceived value, medical tourism, healthcare industry, marketing.