Traveling for Health and Wellbeing
Not Medical Tourism, Quality Medical Travel
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mark Avery
Alignment of travel for medical care and services to contemporary tourism sets up a conflict with the nature of the principles of quality health service delivery across a continuum of care with an inappropriate association with practice and commercialisation of leisure and recreation. This paper looks at the need to reframe the access for treatment and care to a more purposeful association of medical travel. Effective and quality health care is delivered across a continuum of care and the understanding and management of critical interface issues of credentials and expertise of treatment and service providers vary from management of quality, risk, and safety, clinician and patient communications, and aftercare of patients and clients locally and on their return to home. The travel sector has significant resources and experience that can support medical travel including facilities, transportation, logistics, holistic and wellness lifestyle approaches in the context of strong travel integration and connectivity delivery. Framing regional and international travel alignment to the delivery of medical services is an essential, long-term sustainability strategy. This paper examines the key medical service integration requirements to medical travel and looks at the potential for stronger engagement of the travel sector in treatment, care, and medical research delivery.
Medical Tourism Experience in the Philippines
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elena Camilo
The objective of this study is to explore the medical tourism experiences of the medical tourists in the Philippines in order to shed light on the medical tourism practices in the country. This paper will draw insights to address the gaps in medical tourism experience and practices that strengthens the call for more researches for evidence on the process and outcomes of medical tourism procedure to include recommendation to develop strategy to encourage growth of medical tourism in the country.. A qualitative-survey method was used for such an exploratory research. This employed a phenomenological approach through the use of narrative analysis to interpret the data. The 15 respondents were acquired through the use of the snowball technique, and they were characterized through purposive sampling technique to specifically include Koreans studying in the Philippines. An in-depth audio-recorded interview was used to gather the data which goes through coding and thematic analysis. The study generates four themes wherein one of which, reveals drawbacks of the medical tourism outcomes. This study will elicit implications for related research in the industry and provides useful information for the hospitality and medical tourism industry.
Art Deco Hotels Contribution to Community Wellbeing
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andrea Schurmann
This study examines the potential of modern built heritage tourism (MBHT) to contribute to community wellbeing (CW). Modern built heritage (MBH) is defined as a built heritage from the ‘modern’ era 1920 – 1970 (UNESCO n.d.). The value of MBH is currently in focus in the conservation literature as it is at risk of demolition, alteration, and disrepair due to unplanned development, weak legal protection and low awareness of its’ value among the general public. MBH is accessible for many communities as the heritage of tomorrow and could be further utilised for tourism development. However, a limited number of studies examine the relationship between tourism and MBH. Community wellbeing (CW) has recently been explored recently in tourism literature as an approach to sustainable development. CW is often determined by access to, and use of, different forms of capital. This approach is considered important for alleviating the negative impacts of tourism development. The literature clearly demonstrates that tourism can contribute to CW. However, the question of “how” tourism contributes to CW requires further consideration. While the overarching aim of the Ph.D. thesis of which this study is a part is to understand how MBHT contributes to CW, this paper focuses on examples of how Art Deco hotels are contributing to CW. Art Deco is selected as an understudied form of MBH (UNESCO, 2013). In-depth interviews with hotel managers highlight perceptions of their contributions to CW.
