The Effect of Medical and Tour Quality on Perceived Value, Satisfaction, and Word of Mouth - Chinese Customers Perspective -

The medical tourism service industry is one of the flourishing industries worldwide. The growing numbers of tourists are traveling for tour purpose and/or medical purpose and are demanding for higher quality. However, these converged products that offer both medical and tour packages are attracting Chinese consumers to South Korea. This study aims to investigate the effects objective types of Chinese customers’ perceptions on quality(medical and tour), perceived value, satisfaction on WOM. The results indicate that perceived value mediates consumers’ judgment for both tour quality and medical quality to satisfaction for SMO(secondary medical objective) consumers while perceived value acting as a mediating variable between medical quality(primary identification attribute) and satisfaction judgments toward WOM for PMO(primary medical objective) consumers. In addition, satisfaction and perceived value did have a direct effect on positive word of mouth(WOM) but satisfaction has a relatively higher influence for PMO consumers. On the other hand, satisfaction did have a significant positive influence on WOM but perceived value did not have a significant effect on WOM for SMO consumers. These findings have theoretical and managerial implications for PMO and SMO Chinese consumers of quality on behavioral intentions.