 Barriers to business relations between medical tourism facilitators and medical professionalsLila Skountridaki Tourism Management, 2017, vol. 59, issue C, 254-266 Abstract: This paper examines facets of the developing business relations between two important actors in the supply-chain of transnational healthcare: medical tourism facilitators and medical doctors (MDs) practicing privately and internationalising their services. The empirical focus is Greece, an emerging destination for medical care. Drawing on the sociology of the professions as an analytical framework, rich qualitative data reveals a conflictual aspect in the relation between the two actors, and informs the literature on transnational healthcare of barriers to market development. Particularly, MDs practicing privately often resist what is perceived to be medical tourism facilitators' pressures to control the 'rules of the game' in the submarket which inhibits their collaboration. The paper contributes, thus, to the sociology of the professions by bringing to light a new challenge for MDs engaged in the transnational business arena, represented here by the facilitators; and encourages tourism practitioners to consider MDs' self-understanding, attitudes, and expectations. Keywords: Medical tourism facilitators; Medical professionals; Transnational healthcare; Medical dominance; Medical travel/tourism (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:touman:v:59:y:2017:i:c:p:254-266 DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2016.07.008 Access Statistics for this article Tourism Management is currently edited by Chris Ryan More articles in Tourism Management from Elsevier |
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