중국 잠재관광객의 의료관광목적지 선택요인에 관한 탐색적 연구 -대학생을 중심으로

Abstract

This study aimed at classifying into factors the attributes of a tourist destination which Chinese college consider when they go abroad for medical treatment. It was to identify the level of importance in the attribute factors and to test empirically any differences in the factors according to their demographical and social characteristics. For this research purpose, the concept of medical tourism was defined. Literature review was conducted to establish research proposals and to derive measures of the medical tourism destination attributes to test the research purposer. The survey was conducted with the Chinese college students visiting Busan, Korea, from November 1, 2010 through May 6, 2011. A total of 150 close-ended questionnaires were distributed and 109 valid responses were used for the analysis of this study by utilizing the statistical package program SPSSWIN 12.0. Both the exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis were conducted to evaluate the conceptual validity and internal coherence of the measurement items. The exploratory factor analysis was then conducted to validate the scale and to identify dimensions of those attributes. The findings of Cronbach's Alpha were all higher than 0.7 and thus validated the research design. Four factors were identified in the order of relative importance: price and internationalization of medical service, waiting time before medical treatment and medical staff’s kindness, tourism infrastructure, and reputation of the medical staff. In addition, the perceived impotance of destination attributes was found to have significant differences in gender among respondents on the choice of medical tourism destination. Based on the survey results, strategic implications plans were suggested for the medical tourism development of Korea.

Key words : Medical Tourism, Choice Factor, Potential Chinese Medical Tourists