Myanmar medical tourism: Myanmar medical tourists' expectation and perception of service quality at private and public hospitals in Thailand.

Abstract

At the present time, the medical tourism market of Thailand has been growing rapidly and Myanmar patients are seeking medical treatment in foreign countries mostly in Thailand and Singapore. The aim of this study is to identify the gap between Myanmar patient’s perceptions and expectation of the service quality of public and private hospitals in Thailand; and to identify which aspect of service quality is most important for them. In this study, Myanmar patients resided in Thailand as migrant workers who visit to public hospitals will not be collected. This study will be conducted by SERVQUAL model to measure customer satisfaction. Qualitative research will be studied by collecting the information by questionnaires and the study sample contains a total of 109 patients. Multiple regression analysis will be used to analyze five dimensions of service quality, which are reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibility. The result indicated that there were positive gaps between patient’s perceptions and expectations in tangibility, reliability and empathy. Among them, Empathy was the most important aspect of the service quality for Myanmar patient satisfaction. This study will play an important role in identifying the patient perception to the quality of service provided by the public and private hospitals in Thailand. It will help these hospitals in Thailand to improve their service quality and this will in turn help the Myanmar patient satisfaction when doing medical tourism to Thailand.