Responding to Tourists’ Intentions to Revisit Medical Destinations in the Post-COVID-19 Era through the Promotion of Their Clinical Trust and Well-Being

Muhammad N. Abdul-Rahman, Thowayeb H. Hassan (), Ahmed H. Abdou, Mostafa A. Abdelmoaty (), Mahmoud I. Saleh and Amany E. Salem
Additional contact information
Muhammad N. Abdul-Rahman: Social Studies Department, College of Arts, King Faisal University, Al Ahsa 400, Saudi Arabia
Thowayeb H. Hassan: Social Studies Department, College of Arts, King Faisal University, Al Ahsa 400, Saudi Arabia
Ahmed H. Abdou: Social Studies Department, College of Arts, King Faisal University, Al Ahsa 400, Saudi Arabia
Mostafa A. Abdelmoaty: StatisMed for Statistical Analysis Services, Giza 12573, Egypt
Mahmoud I. Saleh: Tourism Studies Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Helwan University, Cairo 12612, Egypt
Amany E. Salem: Social Studies Department, College of Arts, King Faisal University, Al Ahsa 400, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-19

Abstract: The cross-border medical-care industry has recently grown exponentially, and medical-tourism development has been an integral part of the marketing strategies of medical institutions. However, having a successful medical-tourism destination that best attracts customers might be difficult to attain, particularly in the context of scarce relevant literature. Participants’ intentions to revisit a medical-tourism destination is better guided by the interplay of several factors, particularly clinical trust and well-being. The current study aimed to assess the impact of clinical trust and well-being on patients’ intentions to revisit a destination through an online survey on a sample of patients who visited three medical-tourism institutions in Egypt. We investigated also a possible mediation relationship of three institutional variables, including the infrastructure, service quality and the provision of bearable expenses within the hypothesized framework. A structured survey was distributed to medical tourists who visited international medical centers in Cairo city and Red Sea resorts. A partial-least-squares structural-equation-modelling technique was used to validate the used constructs. Results showed that participants’ intention to revisit the destination was significantly predicted by the affordable expenses, medical tourism infrastructure, clinical trust and well-being, but not predicted by service quality. Participants’ well-being fully mediated the relationship between service quality and the intentions to revisit, whereas clinical trust and well-being partially mediated the relationship between the affordable expenses and psychological intentions. Decision makers in the medical-tourism sector might benefit from enhancing tourists’ behavioral intentions via improving patients’ well-being and enhancing clinical trust.

Keywords: medical tourism; trust; well-being; expenses; service quality; infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2399/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2399/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:2399-:d:1050006

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().