THE GROWTH OF MEDICAL TOURISM AND THE IMPACTS ON LOCAL WELLBEING EQUALITY: A CASE OF THAILAND

ABSTRACT

Within the Asia-Pacific region, the growth of medical tourism (MT) in Thailand has been gearing toward a monumental progress. Consequentially, the various research of its policy, strategy and service management have been explored and furthered. Contradictory, the study of local wellbeing equality over the MT has, unfortunately, been in hiatus. The objective of the study is to further the current premise of the literature, test, and prove;arguing that from Thai society's perspectives, the promising MT growth in the kingdom does not necessarily mean an equal establishment of the community's wellbeing. A quantitative methodology employed and linear regression by SPSS run. 0f 600 online and paper questionnaires distributed to Thai's medical doctors, resident doctors, medical students (senior year), and tourism scholars, 528 responses were attained. All four tested hypotheses on the perceived growth of Thailand's MT toward local community's unequal economic, social, healthcare, and environmental aspects, approved. That interprets the issue of policy isolation between MT's investment versus community's benefits.