Search Results (4)

In recent years, with the dramatic surge in the demand for health and elderly care services, the emergence of the health dividend has presented good development opportunities for health and wellness tourism. However, as a sector of the economy, health and wellness tourism still faces numerous challenges in achieving high-quality development. Therefore, this paper focuses on 31 provinces in China and constructs a multidimensional evaluation index system for the high-quality development of health and wellness tourism. The global entropy-weighted TOPSIS method and cluster analysis are used to conduct in-depth measurements, regional comparisons, and classification evaluations of the high-quality development of health and wellness tourism in each province. The research results indicate that: (1) From a quality perspective, the level of health and wellness tourism development in 11 provinces in China has exceeded the national average, while the remaining 20 provinces are below the national average. (2) From a regional perspective, the current level of high-quality development in health and wellness tourism decreases sequentially from the eastern to the central to the western regions, with significant regional differences. (3) Overall, the development in the 31 provinces can be categorized into five types: the High-Quality Benchmark Type, the High-Quality Stable Type, the High-Quality Progressive Type, the General-Quality Potential Type, and the General-Quality Lagging Type. (4) From a single-dimension analysis perspective, there are significant differences in the rankings of each province across different dimensions. Finally, this paper enriches and expands the theoretical foundation on the high-quality development of health and wellness tourism; on the other hand, it puts forward targeted countermeasures and suggestions to help promote the comprehensive enhancement of health and wellness tourism. Full article

Medical tourism is considered to be one of the most upcoming and profitable markets worldwide. The objective of the study is to examine the potential and challenges of medical tourism in the region of Thessaly from the perspective of healthcare providers. A cross-sectional study was conducted from May 2020 to December 2021 in all the medical, rehabilitation and elderly care facilities. A questionnaire focusing on the stances and views of healthcare facilities’ managers was constructed. Private health units are more engaged in medical tourism compared with others, and elderly care facilities are not totally involved. Health units mostly provide dialysis, orthopedics, oncology and gynecology medical tourism services. High-quality services, low costs, touristic and cultural interest and climatological conditions are reported as the main challenges for attracting tourists. Investment in facilities and actions and cooperation with banks and tax breaks are stated as the most common policies and ministries and associations as the most important bodies that can promote medical tourism. Medical tourism in the region is underdeveloped. Medical tourism can be a driver of economic growth if relevant policies are designed with the aim to strengthen and promote it. Full article

The senior tourist market is growing, because the number of elderly people is increasing in Korea. It is widely accepted that experience in travel is more important than any other factor. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine the importance of the experience economy and its impact on outcome variables with the moderating role of tour guiding services in the senior tourism industry. This study more specifically proposed that there is a positive relationship between the four dimensions of the experience economy, which include education, entertainment, aesthetics, and escapism, and tour quality. In addition, it was proposed that tour quality has a positive influence on tour satisfaction and word-of-mouth. Lastly, this study investigated the moderating role of a tour guide service in the relationship between the experience economy and tour quality. The data were collected from 323 seniors who had experienced an overseas package tour in Korea. In order to test the proposed model, this study employed confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling analysis. The data analysis results indicated that entertainment and aesthetics play a significant role in the formation of tour quality. The results of the data analysis also showed that tour quality has a positive influence on tour satisfaction, which in turn positively affects word-of-mouth. Furthermore, a tour guide service moderated the relationship between aesthetics and tour quality. Full article

In this paper, we expand the Hamy mean (HM) operator and Dombi operations with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IVIFNs) to propose the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy Dombi Hamy mean (IVIFDHM) operator, interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted Dombi Hamy mean (IVIFWDHM) operator, interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy dual Dombi Hamy mean (IVIFDDHM) operator, and interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted dual Dombi Hamy mean (IVIFWDDHM) operator. Then the MADM models are designed with IVIFWDHM and IVIFWDDHM operators. Finally, we gave an example for evaluating the elderly tourism service quality in tourism destination to show the proposed models. Full article