Patient-Centeredness Communication Strategy for the Medical Tourism Industry

The concept of patient-centeredness in the Malaysian medical tourism certified hospitals is the commonly preached topic amongst providers. However, there is hardly any nationwide research on medical tourism let alone health communication in Malaysia. Studies have shown that provider-patient communication significantly influences the satisfaction level and health outcomes and ultimately the behavioural intentions of the patients. As such, this research was designed to look at the sub-populations of medical tourists in Malaysia and to understand the differences that exist in these subpopulations. The results indicated that there were slight differences amongst the Indonesians and Singaporeans. The Indonesians were more loyal yet vocal as compared to the Singaporeans. On top of that there were more Indonesians that sought treatments in haematology, oncology, endocrinology, cardiology, and neurology. The results also revealed that Indonesians were more likely to rely on friends, agents, and media to gather information about medical tourism industry in Malaysia. More research needs to be done to understand the medical tourists in Malaysia in order for the providers to stay competitive.

Analysis of the Room Supply in the Hotel Zone of Cancun, Mexico: EMU 9

The area known as the Hotel Zone of Cancun, sun and beach destination located in the State of Quintana Roo and considered to be of the highest importance to Mexico, is the central focal point of this article. It starts with a description of the behavior of tourism and its influence on the generation of public resources through tax collection. It then outlines regulation and legislation relating to the maximum amount permitted by the number of rooms at the Environmental Management Unit (EMU-9)* which includes the hotel zone. The central analysis is based on census results obtained in the month of November 2011. The main findings were grouped into the three main operation types: All Inclusive, European Plan and Mixed Plan. Criteria are formulated by scales according to the area in square meters, including frequencies with the type of operation, grouped by number of bathrooms and beds.

*Environmental Management Unit (EMU-9) = Unidad de Gestión Ambiental (UGA-9)

The conclusions demonstrate the need to establish policies and clear boundaries to avoid an uncertain future for the most important sun and beach destination of the Mexican Caribbean.

An Assessment of Sport Event Tourists’ Motivation with a Framework: A Case Study at a Southeast Conference Football Game

The decision to travel and attend sport events is usually an important process for the travelers that involves many key factors such as motivation, time allowance, interests, destination image, past experience, personal factors, and economic condition. While a significant number of studies have been conducted on sport event attendees’ and tourists’ behavior, especially their motivation, there is little research to date that examines and understands why tourists attend college football events in a structured framework. The objective of this study is to find these reasons and construct an instrument for measuring sport tourists’ motivation that can be useful in organizing sport events and developing marketing plans. Three important factors were found: Economical Sport Event Tourism, Football Game Itself, and Being a Good Resident. The results of this study will be very useful for Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) and college sport event organizers to understand sport event tourists.

Menus as Marketing Tools: Developing a Resort Hotel Restaurant Menu Typology

Resort hotels are unique. Resort hotel guests generally stay longer than for other hotel types and often do not venture outside the resort. They are therefore a captive audience. Their perceptions of the quality of the food and beverage offer in a resort hotel may be crucial in their selection of that resort hotel. Putting a menu on a resort hotel’s website may influence resort hotel selection by potential guests, particularly those with special dietary requirements. This paper develops a typology of menu types and explores their use by resort hotel restaurants worldwide. Following the development of the typology, analysis of the online dinner menus of the 66 resort hotels included on the 2011 World’s Best Hotels/Travel + Leisure website against the typology was undertaken. 39 of the 66 resort hotel restaurants offered online menus. The menus ranged from offering little or no description of menu items (8) to offering detailed descriptions of menu items (7). Some emphasized the affective or sensory aspects of menu items (3) or the use of local and/or organic foods (11). Six menus offered geographic labelling or branding to indicate the provenance of their dishes. Menu descriptions promoting the use of local foods and wines enhanced the Sense of Place and differentiated a resort hotel product from its competitors increasing its perceived value to guests. Four restaurants offered tasting menus. The study concludes that not displaying a restaurant menu on a resort hotel website is a lost opportunity.

Understanding Service Failures: Suggesting a Competency Perspective

This paper reports research on a qualitative case study of service failures carried out on the prestigious Norwegian Coastal Voyage (NCV), or Hurtigruten which is its brand name. A total of 51 service failure incidents were identified, collected and analysed, and the paper shows the role of the actors’ competencies in service failure processes onboard the Hurtigruten. The examination of a set of components that constitute competencies, those of knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviours, were used in order to explain the occurrence of service failures in an explorer cruise line context.

Events and the Means of Attention

In the contemporary network society, attracting public attention has become more challenging as the supply of information increases. Events arguably play an essential role in synchronizing personal, social and political agendas, helping to focus attention and frame places, objects and people. The event audience justifies the event by paying attention to it, but the event also has to reciprocate by paying attention to the audience. This paper looks at how contemporary rituals that are designed to focus attention and generate ‘emotional energy’ through shared co-presence and a mutual focus of attention, as suggested by Collins in 2004. The event itself, therefore, arguably mirrors practices in the wider network society, where sociality increasingly depends on generating and exchanging attention. The extent to which events and event places successfully create the conditions for successful event rituals by developing the means of attention is examined through examples of cultural and sporting events, focusing on the creative interplay between consumers and producers and their cocreation of event experiences.