DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2015.1510
title: The rise of Muslim patients from Middle East to ASEAN: the challenge of Thailand in regional competition

description: Globalization is driving many developing countries in Asia to intensify their Medical Hub competition policy to be a destination for worldwide medical tourism. The Islamic population, or so-called Muslims, is expected to increase to be about 30% of the world’s total population by 2020. The purchase behaviors among Muslims are moving toward an increasing demand for quality-oriented products and/or services. The shift of their economic power has a significant impact on world tourism. Southeast Asia is well known as a super-attractive tourism destination for Muslim people from rich countries.This study is an analysis of Thailand’s capability to keep pace within ASEAN as a preferred destination for medical tourism and provides a basis for detailed recommendations for policymakers and the business sector regarding medical care for Gulf Nation visitors. The goal is to regulate healthcare resources on the policy side and to manage healthcare in a way that serves local consumers, while facilitating the competitive development of medical tourism for Thailand. In competing as a medical tourism destination for Muslim people, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines all play major roles in Southeast Asia. This review is focused on areas relevant to medical tourism; globalization and medical tourism, countries competing in medical tourism in ASEAN, Muslim patients in medical practice and relevant other researches. This study was conducted to determine the influencing factors that satisfy Muslim people from Gulf Nations with Thailand as the destination of their medical tourism. A descriptive research has been performed by a mixed methodology to describe the relationship between discrete factors involved and to present the opinions of key actors in the competitive arena of medical tourism. A total of 115 respondents completed the research questionnaire. The multivariate analysis of variance was used in order to test relationships between variables. Six executive persons from the private sector were individually interviewed and they participated in a focus group discussion. The results of the study find that there is statistical significance between the demographic elements, such as gender, occupation and frequency of visit, and the influencing factors satisfying Muslim people with Thailand hospitals as a medical tourism destination. Additionally, the statistical significance indicates the combined effects between the demographic factors, such as frequency of visit of the respondents and country of residence, to one primary influencing factor which was Muslim medical practice, and finds that Muslim medical practice is a satisfier for Muslim people from Gulf Nations, significant at level 0.011. For this reason research hypothesis H1 has been accepted. A qualitative study presents recommendations for boosting Thailand’s capability to be desirable for Muslims as a medical tourism destination within ASEAN. Further studies in the details of policy content should be conducted to get more informative results.Although Thailand is not an Islamic state, it can create value-added for Muslim medical tourism. This study provides recommendations that cover key issues for various dimensions of analysis; in international relations, the economic dimension, and socio-cultural cooperation. Public Private Partnership (PPP) is also an intervention in policy implementation and a key to success for productive medical tourism. In addition, the study recommends strengthening regional cooperation and multi-lateralization among strategic partners in ASEAN medical tourism, based on the fundamental principle of equity of access to quality health care of ASEAN people, which is the innovative strategy - to integrate ASEAN soft power in medical tourism.In conclusion, Thailand can expand its ability to compete within ASEAN, as well as move forward in global competition. According to the Medical Hub policy of Thailand, the theory holds that good governance of policy which is implemented by an active role and good integration of functional agents, including participation between public and private sectors, are the keys to successfully moving up the value chain of medical tourism for Thailand. These recommendations provide a basis for further empirical studies into details of particular relevance to the benefits of Thailand in keeping up as a preferred Muslim medical tourism destination within ASEAN.