Abstract
Medical tourism is a rapidly growing industry stimulated by the rise in demand for relatively cheaper yet high quality medical services amongst citizens in wealthy nations. The phenomenon has been driven by affordable air travel and the proliferation of online tools and applications and a global electronic business network. In these host nations, companies have been established that act as intermediaries between the healthcare recipients and medical institutions, referred to as Health Tourism Agents (HTAs). Malaysia has joined the list of countries promoting its medical infrastructure to healthcare customers from other countries. This paper describes an investigation into the use of conventional web-enabled tools, such as websites, blogs, and forums, in the dissemination of information, maintaining relations with customers and business partners, and evaluation of the quality of services by customers, by examining five such HTAs in Malaysia.
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Sarkar, S.K., Sarkar, P.K. (2010). Use of Internet Applications & Tools by Health Tourism Agents in Malaysia: An Exploratory Study. In: Gretzel, U., Law, R., Fuchs, M. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2010. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-99407-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-99407-8_6
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