Building Brand Awareness In The Medical Travel Market

The research work has as objective to determine the factors that contribute to the construction of the e-Reputation of a medical tourism business. The research tries to propose to medical facilitators methods and in particular Web marketing strategies, to help improve the ergonomics and the effectiveness of their web sites in order to meet the expectations of potential patients (medical tourists). The first part of the thesis exposes fundamental theories on medical tourism, its history and the issues it represents, the segmentation of the world market and the flow of patients to different destinations, the role of the medical facilitator in the patient experience, the internet and e-Reputation. The second part is based on a research with a twofold objective: on the one hand determining the motivations of medical tourists and the information they need in order to be reassured to seek treatment abroad. On the other hand, to determine which is the best approach used by the medical facilitators to meet the needs of these tourists and understand how they can build their image on the Internet (e-Reputation). The results of the analysis will help formulate marketing messages to meet the needs of the new patterns of medical tourists, who are now Internet users.