Tourism Review: Volume 66 Issue 1/2

Health and medical tourism: a kill or cure for global public health?

C. Michael Hall

The major purpose of this introduction to the special issue of Tourism Review on health and medical tourism is to outline some of main issues that exist in the academic literature…

Wellness tourists: in search of transformation

Cornelia Voigt, Graham Brown, Gary Howat

The purpose of this paper is to explore and compare the benefits sought by three different types of wellness tourists: beauty spa, lifestyle resort, and spiritual retreat visitors.

The discourse of medical tourism in the media

Tomas Mainil, Vincent Platenkamp, Herman Meulemans

Non‐discursive practices such as the economy and political constellations have always caused shifts in history. However, in the network society of today, these shifts have become…

MEDTOUR: a scale for measuring medical tourism intentions

David S. Martin, Zo Ramamonjiarivelo, Warren S. Martin

The purpose of this paper is to use a theoretical model to create a scale to predict medical tourism (MT) intentions.

Systematic review of web sites for prospective medical tourists

Neil Lunt, Percivil Carrera

A key driver in the medical tourism phenomenon is the platform provided by the internet for gaining access to healthcare information and advertising. Given the pivotal role of…

Macao's potential for developing regional Chinese medical tourism

Ching‐Chi (Cindia) Lam, Hilary du Cros, Tze Ngai (Louis) Vong

This article aims to examine how Macao could become a destination to attract health and medical tourists from the People's Republic of China (China), as since its return from…

Health travel motivation and activities: insights from a mature market – Switzerland

Christian Laesser

The purpose of this paper is to investigate predictors (stated motivation and reported leisure activities) of health travel as opposed to a control group incorporating all other…

Branding new services in health tourism

Tanja C. Boga, Klaus Weiermair

The purpose of this paper is to serve as an introduction to the usefulness of means‐end chain (MEC) theory and analysis for branding in health tourism.

Sustainable medical tourism in Costa Rica

Robert S. Bristow, Wen‐Tsann Yang, Mei‐Tsen Lu

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the relative importance of sustainable tourism practices to medical tourists. Sustainable management practices have become the accepted…

Medical tourism: emerging biosecurity and nosocomial issues

C. Michael Hall, Michael James

The major purpose of this research note is to explore some of the potential biosecurity and nosocomial risks associated with international medical tourism.

A new company descriptor takes us into a new era

Rebecca Marsh