MEDICAL TOURISM AND THE ROLE OF E-MEDICAL TOURISM INTERMEDIARIES IN GREECE

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the tourist industry’s satisfaction with medical tourism in Greece, the factors associated with its performance improvement and the ICT infrastructure underlying it. For this purpose, a nationwide survey was carried out in 2012. According to our findings, satisfaction of tourist company executives with their performance in handling the flow of medical tourists depends on the degree of company staff training on medical tourism. In addition, the important role of state agencies or local government in guaranteeing local infrastructure availability and quality is a fact that influences directly tourism entrepreneurship in the country. Obviously, medical tourism in Greece could constitute an important source of national income and consequently, an alternative for the country to exit the economic crisis, provided care is given to ICT infrastructure and legislation procedures.