Growing competition in the healthcare tourism market and customer retention in medical clinics: New and experienced travellers

This research sought to investigate international medical travellers’ post-purchase decision-making process by utilizing key concepts in medical tourism (i.e. medical product quality, effective communication, satisfaction, switching costs, and past experience [first-time vs. repeat experiences]). A visitor survey was conducted at medical clinics. Results of the structural model generally supported the proposed relationships among study variables. The role of study variables in generating revisit intention was found to differ significantly between new and repeat customers, and the strength of the proposed relationships was generally greater in the repeater group than in the first-timer group. This study also identified the mediating impact of satisfaction and switching costs. Additionally, the prominent role of satisfaction in the proposed theoretical framework was identified. The results of a structural-model comparison also revealed that a quality–satisfaction linkage was stronger than its alternative ordering in the proposed framework. Overall, this study provides great insight into medical travellers’ post-purchase behaviours.