Medical tourists' expectations when choosing Lithuania for health care services

Abstract

Purpose – Identify medical expectations of tourists choosing Lithuania as medical tourism country and to make comparative analysis with situation in Thailand. Medical tourism is one of the most promising fields of business in the world. International trade in medical services also has huge economic potential and gradually increasing outcome for the global economy (Bookman & Bookman, 2007). Major medical tourism destinations: Thailand, India, Singapore and Malaysia attracted more than 2.5 million medical travellers (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, 2008). Lithuania is among the major emerging markets in medical tourism that is increasing every year. This study showed that main factors of attracting tourist to Lithuania: fast service and exceptional patient care, the high-tech medical equipment, good prices both for medical and travel services. Comparing to Thailand situation, Lithuania is attractive to the most medical tourist, because of the good quality services with affordable prices and location, while people choosing Thailand – mainly is affected by advertising. The main recommendation for attracting medical tourists to Lithuania is to initiate the advertising campaign to the targeted audiences.