Satisfaction and Subjective Well-Being of Health Tourists: The Case of Japanese and Korean Tourists

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to examine the differences of perception between health tour seekers and non-seekers of subjective well-being (SWE). Relative data were collected from 158 Korean package tourists who traveled to Sapporo, Japan, and from 111 Japanese package tourists who traveled to Busan, Korea. The results indicated that health tourism seekers perceived the level of contribution of the health tour to SWE to be more positive than non-seekers. It also revealed that the satisfaction levels of the tourism activities had a partially significant impact on the SWE of participants and non-participants.

KEYWORDS:

• Health tourism
• medical tourism
• subjective well-being
• SWE
• life satisfaction

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Dong-Eui University and Hallym University. [grant number H20150076]

Notes on contributors

Hyun Ji Kim

Hyun Ji Kim is Professor, Department of International Tourism Management, Dong-Eui University, Busan 47340, South Korea (E-mail: [email protected]).

Timothy J. Lee

Timothy J. Lee is Professor, Department of Tourism and Hospitality, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), Beppu, 874-8577, Japan (E-mail: [email protected]).

Tae Gyou Ko

Tae Gyou Ko is Professor, Department of Convention and Tourism Management, College of Business, Hallym University, Chuncheon 24252, South Korea (E-mail: [email protected]).