The Role of Service Quality in Developing the Medical Tourism Sector in an Arabic Context: the Qatari Perspective

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Author
Albaz, Asrar
Date
2019Type
Thesis
Publisher
Cardiff Metropolitan University
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Medical tourism is a growing niche market within the global tourism sector which has
expanded significantly over the last two decades. Since the early 2000s, the Qatari Government
has been proactively trying to move away from its economic dependence on oil and the finite
hydrocarbon industries and to develop more sustainable industries. At the same time the culture
of the country has meant that the government has always sought to provide world class
healthcare for its people free at the point of use. Consolidating these aims in the Qatar National
Vision 2030, the Qatari Government now seeks to develop a medical tourism industry, which
would continue to provide world-class health care for its people, provide high status
employment, and expand its sustainable economic base. The aim of this study was to develop
an in-depth understanding of the complexity of medical tourism per se and in particular the
complexity of medical tourism as a distinct niche market within the Qatari context.
SERVQUAL theory was used as a tool to help develop this deep understanding of medical
tourism within the Arabic context. In this study, a framework is developed to identify the
critical service quality factors in that context using Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) as a
vehicle in Qatar.
A three-phase exploratory sequential mixed methods research design guided by a pragmatic
research paradigm with HMC as the vehicle was implemented. Qualitative data was collected
through semi-structured interviews with 6 Qatari government officials and 20 senior managers
of HMC for the first two phases. For the third a questionnaire involving 350 users of HMC
services was distributed to collect quantitative data. Thematic analysis was employed to
analyse the interview data while the questionnaire data was analysed using SPSS. The data
from all three studies was then triangulated to validate the results and identify key themes.
The key findings identified an essential need to revise current Qatari legislation in order to
allow hospitals and other medical facilities to participate in the commercial delivery of medical
tourism and to relax visa restrictions to allow for easier access to Qatar. They also revealed
confusion with regard concept of medical tourism, identifying a much larger continuum of
types than previously understood, and conflict between participants with regard to potential
fears relating to the development of medical tourism. Finally, it was found that only 4 of the 5
service gaps usually identified in SERVQUAL models were applicable in the Qatari context
from a theoretical perspective.
Description
PhD Thesis - School of Management
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