Implications of Service Quality Model for Medical Tourism in India

"Medical Tourism", refers to the increasing tendency among people from the UK, the USA and many other third world countries, where medical services are either very expensive or not available, to leave their countries in search for more affordable health options, often packaged with tourist attractions (Rao, 2006)1. Medical tourism is an industry which combines two closely related services, like, medical treatment and tourism (RNCOS,2007)². This is a booming industry in countries like, India, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Srilanka, etc. SERVQUAL model developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry has high implications for Medical Tourism as it highlights the main requirements for delivering high service quality. As customer is the king, creating "customer delight" to the foreign medical tourist by providing the quality service by reducing the customer expectation gaps is a challenge for medical tourism providers. The application of SERVQUAL model is handy to enable a hospital engaged in Medical Tourism to deliver superior quality service resulting in customer satisfaction amidst competition. This can also be effective for creating customer loyalty and brand building.