A bibliometric study of medical tourism

ABSTRACT

This bibliometric study analyzes 1535 publications from 1952 to 2020 on medical tourism. The aim of the study is to portray medical tourism publication trends from different perspectives such as the main subjects, word dynamics, authors’ originations and finally research gaps and future directions. The study shows that concepts like “perceived value” and “destination image” are among the emerging concerns in recent studies. The themes of research were grouped into six themes of marketing, economic & political, social & cultural, ethical, technological and governmental within these categories, factors affecting emotional aspects of tourists’ decision-making were found to be under-studies, compared to factors feeding the cognitive side of their choice of destinations.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical tourism
• bibliometric studies
• publication trends
• tourism destinations

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the ZENODO repository http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5025655 .

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alireza Habibi

Alireza Habibi holds a PhD in Marketing from UKM-Graduate School of Business, Malaysia. He is an assistant professor at Ahlul Bayt International University, IRAN. His research interests include tourism, service, Islamic marketing.

Maryamossadat Mousavi

Maryamossadat Mousavi holds a Ph.D. in Human Resource Management from University of Tehran, Iran. Her research interest include tourism, cultural studies and human resource management

Seyedh Mahboobeh Jamali

Seyedh Mahboobeh Jamali holds PhD in science from USM, Malaysia. She is a researcher at Ministry of Education, Iran. Her research interests include educational management studies and research tools.

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Nader Ale Ebrahim holds a PhD in Technology Management from Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Malaysia. His research interests are research visibility and research tools.