Journal of Hotel and Business Management
Open Access

Abstract

Analysis of Health Travellers? Satisfaction Based on Service Quality in the Malaysian Fertility Centre

Faizah Shahudin*, Lim Jia Yi, Salman Haider Minhaz and Mohd Rusli Yacob

p>Malaysia has emerged as a popular destination for medical tourism, aiming to offer the best healthcare travel experience by 2025. Specifically, Malaysia aspires to become the leading fertility hub in Asia. This research aimed to analyse the factors influencing medical tourism satisfaction based on health travellers’ perceived service quality in Malaysian fertility centres. Service Performance (SERVPERF) also known as customer perception of performance, is recognized as a performance-only indicator of service quality. The model was adopted to analyse the health travellers’ satisfaction and experiences that can only be recognized during or after the consumption phase. Five variables tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy serves as the theoretical framework for this quantitative study. The respondents are the female international patients who seek In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatment at Malaysia's X (female)-fertility centre, specifically those who had Oocytes Picked Up (OPU) or Embryo Transfer (ET) between April 1 ^st, 2022 and March 31^st, 2023. 240 valid respondents were obtained and the results of the study indicated a positive relationship between the five variables of the SERVPERF model and health travellers’ satisfaction. The findings revealed that in all five SERVPERF dimensions, the highest value among the factors that affect health travellers’ satisfaction was assigned to empathy, followed by assurance, reliability and responsiveness. For future development of fertility tourism in Malaysia, service providers need to be mindful of the results of this study and consider them in their marketing, communication and service development strategies. Along with this viewpoint the fundamental elements of both travel destination and healthcare service experience are equally important in understanding the satisfaction of the health travellers and by understanding the relationship between the dimensions of experiential relationship in fertility tourism.

Published Date: 2024-11-20; Received Date: 2024-08-20