4 / 9
allied
academies
Page 26
Notes:
Journal of Intensive and Critical Care Nursing | Volume 2
October 24-25, 2019 | Zurich, Switzerland
2nd European
Nursing Congress
International Conference on
Clinical Nursing & Practice
Joint Event
&
J Intensive Crit Care Nurs, Volume 2
How does Customers' Experience Affects Customers’ Loyalty for Health Tourism
Destination?
Hekmat Y Al-Akash, Abdelhakeem R Abu Arrah
and
Pelin Bayram
Applied Science Private University, Jordan
Girne American University, Cyprus
M
edical and health tourism (HT) are one of the fastest
growing segmentation for tourism industry and gaining
a great attention in modern business environment. It has
been emerged due to an exponential growth in the global
health market that provides multiple and various options
for the healthcare customers. Host countries consider HT
as one of the significant components for economic growth
and have focused on how yields from foreign patients
translates into jobs and revenue. For the health destination
to be able to sustain in the competitive market, it must
intensify its efforts to make the destination perceived as
brand by the customers/ patients. Branding is a common
concept for all industries, and it is considered as a powerful
marketing strategy however it has not widely investigated
in the health tourism literature. It is often linked to quality
of product or service and referred to as “Brand Equity”.
The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of customer
experience (CE) upon customer-based brand equity (CBBE) in
the medical destination. The CE was investigated in terms
of Service Performance, Word-of-Mouth, and Advertising
& Marketing. The CBBE was constructed as Destination
Brand Awareness, Image, Quality, and Loyalty). In this study
structural equation modeling (SEM) is employed as analytical
approach to test hypotheses. Our research targeted 200
patients visited Jordan for the purpose of medical treatment
in the period between March and May 2019. The scale of the
study adopted from previous studies in the field of tourism
and health tourism and data was collected from patients
during their stay in Jordanian hospitals for treatment.
Our findings and implications for the HT are discussed.
Speaker Biography
Hekmat Y Al-Akash has completed her 3 years Diploma in Nursing from
a military college in 1987, she then completed her BSc in nursing in the
University of Jordan in 1994, master degree from Jordan University of
Science & Technology in 2002, a PhD in nursing from the University of
Jordan in 2015. Dr. Al-Akash worked as a nurse in different clinical and
managerial roles in the Royal Medical Services in Jordan for more than
27 years, she has retired as a colonel to start her new role as a nursing
educator at Applied Science University in 2015, she has 5 published articles
in clinical nursing and its academics.
e:
h_alakash@asu.edu.jo