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Customer experience management in medical tourism (case study: Iranian hospital’s medical tourists)

Hamed Dabaghi (Faculty of Economics, Management and Accounting, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran)
Saeid Saieda Ardakani (Faculty of Economics, Management and Accounting, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran)
Seyed Mohammad Tabataba’i-Nasab (Faculty of Economics, Management and Accounting, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran)

Journal of Islamic Marketing

ISSN: 1759-0833

Article publication date: 12 March 2021

Issue publication date: 7 January 2022

661

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the emerging phenomenon of medical tourism in the context of Iran from a customer experience management perspective and benchmark of their judgment including positive or negative, of the experience they have achieved of the Iranian health (medical) experience (CE) and suggest scenarios for the improvement of the Iranian customer experience management (CEM).

Design/methodology/approach

The research methodologies and research methods that are used in this descriptive-analytical research are based on an inspection of the remarkable literature related to medical tourism and customer experience management. The data gathering instrument is a researcher-made questionnaire based on the variables in the conceptual model extracted from the research literature. The study was conducted from May to August 2019. The population cohort of this study was the foreign patients calling selected Iranian hospitals and the sampling method was a purposive and snowball sample of prospective medical tourists. As the study was conducted throughout Iran, some important hospitals in Iran were selected by stratified sampling Yang et al. (2020b). The sample size and data saturation were 500 participants Lv and Song (2019). The collected data using the questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS software and statistical tests.

Findings

According to the results, the customer experience management statistical significance in the task aspect is (p = 0.0523), in the mechanical aspect is (p = 0.0563), in the human aspect is (p = 0.0544). The study showed positive customer experience among the patients who had been treated in the Iranian hospitals.

Originality/value

There is a lack of study that focuses on medical tourism and customer experience management in Iran. Therefore, based on the results of this study, the experience of medical tourists in Iran proved to be positive and satisfying. As little research has been conducted in the area of customer experience management (CEM) in Iranian medical tourism, future researchers can use these valuable results precisely and in more detail to benchmark more accurately the customer experience in all areas of medical and health tourism and other research areas in different aspects of CEM in Iran.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work would not have been possible without the financial support of people that take part in this deep work. Fruitful suggestions by two anonymous reviewers to improve the status of the manuscript are gratefully acknowledged.

Citation

Dabaghi, H., Saieda Ardakani, S. and Tabataba’i-Nasab, S.M. (2022), "Customer experience management in medical tourism (case study: Iranian hospital’s medical tourists)", Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 198-226. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIMA-04-2020-0092

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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