This new volume, which complements the editors’ earlier volume Medical Travel Brand Management: Success Strategies for Hospitality Bridging Healthcare (H2H), explores the multitude of medical travel services and discusses the integration of traveling medical guests with destination providers, hospitality/healthcare professionals, and travel service providers. The editors also address the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has made on the travel industry, which has motivated them to bring together major players, renowned authors, practitioners, and researchers to create this book to help prepare the medical tourism market to not only recover from the devastating effects of the pandemic but also to provide tools and cases that will help to structure successful destinations for medical travel. From chapters on branding to assessing accreditation and post-care quality metrics, Drs. DeMicco, Poorani, and their fellow contributors take the reader through the critical phases of the medical travel journey: pre-visit, travel, on-site care, discharge and follow-up care. The authors address critical issues facing medical, health, and wellness travel from both macro and micro perspectives. Presentations of best practices and strategies demonstrate how some destinations have built, renewed, or engaged various stakeholders to construct or enhance their medical tourism destination. Medical Travel: Hospitality Bridging Healthcare (H2H) © also showcases best practices and innovative ways of designing and operating a profitable and entrepreneurial practice. Quality issues, aesthetics, and legal issues related to inbound and outbound medical tourism are also presented. The book explores the evolving nature of hospital design and the complex relationship between people and medicine as manifested in the relationship of hospital aesthetics to patient satisfaction. Importantly, the book also includes a chapter addressing medical health travel during the pandemic which describes how the pandemic has revolutionized telehealth and the medical travel industry, which can leverage the advances made in digital health and telemedicine. This volume will be an important resource for the four main players at the center of medical travel: medical travelers themselves, government agencies, intermediaries, and health and wellness providers. The selected best practices, research, cases, innovative strategies, SWOT analysis, and toolkits address the aims of all stakeholders.

Irrespective of the legal sphere and type of care (primary, secondary, and continuing), providers must ensure that users receive quality healthcare through the efficient use of resources, responsiveness, affordability, and the equal treatment of patients. Management and marketing have been playing an important role in this sector with the importance of branding growing in the healthcare market. The chance for brand in healthcare is determined by the challenges to increase and improve consumer choice. That's something to which providers and health systems, in general, have not been familiarized. New Techniques for Brand Management in the Healthcare Sector is a critical research publication that explores the diffusion of new marketing knowledge, tendencies, and qualitative and quantitative methods for brand management in the private, public, and social health sectors and examines the movement from healthcare as a priceless commodity to one that can be, and is, commodified. Highlighting topics such as e-health, medical tourism, and brand management, this publication is essential for hospital directors, marketers, advertisers, promotion coordinators, brand managers, product specialists, academicians, healthcare professionals, brand strategists, policymakers, researchers, and students.

Medical and health tourism is a significant area of growth in the export of medical, health and tourism services. Although spas and improved well-being have long been part of the tourist experience, health tourism now includes travel for medical purposes ranging from cosmetic and dental surgery through to transplants and infertility treatment. Many countries including China, Cuba, Hungary, India, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore actively promote and compete for the medical tourist dollar, while many developed countries also provide niche private services. However, the field of medical tourism is increasingly being subject to scrutiny and debate, particularly as a result of concerns over regulatory, ethical and wider health issues. Drawing on a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives, this book is one of the first to critically address the substantial political, philosophical and ethical issues that arise out of the transnational practices of medical tourism. Through a series of chapters the book engages with key issues such as the role of regulatory and policy structures in influencing medical and health tourism related mobilities. These issues are investigated by considering range of developing and developed countries, medical systems and health economic perspectives. The book adopts a multi-layered perspective to not only investigate the business and marketing practices of medical and health tourism but places these within a broader framework of contemporary globalisation, policy and practice. By doing so it opens up debate of the ethical space in which medical and health tourism operates as well as reinforce the wide ranging perspectives that exist on the subject in both the public and academic imagination. This significant contribution will be of interest to students, academics in tourism and medical policy, trade and economic development fields.

Healthcare and medical services have seen rapid development in various areas of the world, including Asia and Eastern Europe. These territories are now becoming a medical hub for many surrounding countries. Medical tourism is the practice of traveling to international regions for treatment that isn’t available locally. This subject has gained significant attention throughout the tourism industry, as researchers and professionals are searching for specific advancements of medical care and hospital development in numerous countries. Growth of the Medical Tourism Industry and Its Impact on Society: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a collection of innovative research on the methods and advancement of medical travel for treatment in various global regions and provides insights for the growth prospects of the medical tourism business. While highlighting topics including destination branding, community impact, and hospital management, this book is ideally designed for medical executives, hospital directors, researchers, policymakers, academicians, practitioners, scholars, and students seeking current research on tourism practices within the medical field.

Health, Tourism and Hospitality: Spas, Wellness and Medical Travel, 2nd Edition takes an in-depth and comprehensive look at the growing health, wellness and medical tourism sectors in a global context. The book analyses the history and development of the industries, the way in which they are managed and organised, the expanding range of new and innovative products and trends, and the marketing of destinations, products and services. The only book to offer a complete overview and introduction to health, tourism and hospitality this 2nd Edition has been updated to include: • Expanded coverage to the hospitality sector with a particular focus on spa management. • New content on medical tourism throughout the book, to reflect the worldwide growth in medical travel with more and more countries entering this competitive market. • Updated content to reflect recent issues and trends including: ageing population, governments encouraging preventative health, consumer use of contemporary and alternative therapies, self-help market, impacts of economic recession, spa management and customer loyalty. • New case studies taken from a range of different countries and contexts, and focusing on established or new destinations, products and services such as: conventional medicine, complementary and alternative therapies, lifestyle-based wellness, beauty and cosmetics, healthy nutrition, longevity and anti (or active)-ageing, amongst others. Written in a user friendly style, this is essential reading for students studying health, tourism and hospitality.

Health and Wellness Tourism takes an innovative look at this rapidly growing sector of today¿s thriving tourism industry. This book examines the range of motivations that drive this diverse sector of tourists, the products that are being developed to meet their needs and the management implications of these developments. A wide range of international case studies illustrate the multiple aspects of the industry and new and emerging trends including spas, medical wellness, life-coaching, meditation, festivals, pilgrimage and yoga retreats. The authors also evaluate marketing and promotional strategies and assess operational and management issues in the context of health and wellness tourism. This text includes a number of features to reinforce theory for advanced students of hospitality, leisure and tourism and related disciplines.

The era of globalization allows for more connectivity between nations and cultures. This increase in international association gives citizens the ability to take advantage of opportunities in other nations, such as medical assistance and accompanying services. Medical Tourism: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice is a comprehensive reference source for the latest scholarly material on trends, practices, and emerging phenomena of international travel by patients for medical treatment and examines the benefits and challenges of these services. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as hospitality management, reproductive medicine, and ethical considerations, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for the needs of healthcare providers, nonprofit organizations, students, and medical professionals seeking relevant research on the relationship between global travel and access to healthcare.

Medical Tourism and Wellness: Hospitality Bridging Healthcare (H2H) takes a systems approach to examining the growing field of medical tourism, one of the field’s hottest niches, with billions of dollars spent each year. This important book fills the need for a modern management book that looks at medical tourism in depth from a medical and hospitality operational management perspective. Growing numbers of people are going abroad to find affordable quality medical care for both necessary and cosmetic medical services. When they require surgery or dental work, they combine it with a trip to the Taj Mahal, a photo safari on the African veldt, or a stay at a luxury hotel—or at a hospital that feels like one—all at bargain-basement prices. The book takes a comprehensive look at medical tourism, covering such topics as: The history of medical tourism Why patients/tourists decide to travel for medical care The role of professional facilitators of medical tourism Key countries and medical disciplines in medical tourism Transportation, food, entertainment, and hotel/hospitality services Hotel and spa designs for medical tourism Best practices in medical tourism Patient follow-up after medical discharge Future trends in medical tourism Careers in medical tourism With the inclusion of case studies, the book provides a comprehensive look into this growing trend and will be valuable to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in health care administration and those pursing MBAs in healthcare, medical students pursuing a management focus, and students in hospitality management. It will also be a must-have resource for professionals working in hotels and in health care.

This textbook shows how cities, regions and countries adopt branding strategies similar to those of leading household brand names in an effort to differentiate themselves and emotionally connect with potential tourists. It asks whether tourist destinations get the reputations they deserve and uses topical case studies to discuss brand concepts and challenges. It tackles how place perceptions are formed, how cities, regions and countries can enhance their reputations as creative, competitive destinations, and the link between competitive identity and strategic tourism policy making.