German Patients Choice Of International Health Tourism Destination

1926 Words8 Pages

1 Introduction
1.1 Rationale of the research
1.1.1 Research context
The health tourism is becoming more popular between the citizens of the first world countries, not just because the affordable prices but because the trust in some of the third world countries is getting higher. There are several motivations which drive medical travelers to search for health care treatments outside their home country such as the price, the professionals’ skills, the technology used and the offered services.
The proposed project examines the factors influencing the German patients’ choice regarding health tourism destination, this, to recognize the Colombia’s potential as a destination for the German market. In order to offer this kind of services to the people …show more content…

Earlier studies have concluded several factors that motivate patients to seek health care treatment abroad. The research made by McKinsey in 2008 shows that the product is the sole feature that influences patients to seek medical treatment overseas. According to a Deloitte research (Deloitte Development, 2008), international patients are selecting their destination to obtain medical procedures mainly based on the price, wherein cheaper treatment can be found in many places all over the world. Smith and Forgione pointed that the product and the price are the most important factors that drive the choice of international health care destination (Smith and Forgione, 2008). Using the information in previous studies, the research intends to determine the factors that are important for the German patients at the time to choose the medical care destination and the motivations to go abroad for these matters. The study will use the marketing mix factors (product, price, place and promotion) to recognize which ones are the crucial features for the German market in order to determinate if the people in Germany would go to Colombia to get medical care and how to persuade …show more content…

The main idea is to distribute a questionnaire asking for the desirable characteristics of a health service in a developing country. It is important to ask the impressions that they have about this kind of tourism and if is possible for them to go abroad to get a medical procedure. On the other hand is important to identify which group of the population is more accessible to perform this survey; people that are willing to visit the developing countries, people from a certain socioeconomic strata, or people that spend certain amount of money in medical

More about German Patients Choice Of International Health Tourism Destination

Open Document