Malaysia Healthcare Tourism: Accreditation, Service Quality, Satisfaction and Loyalty

Patient loyalty and its attributes are significant concerns for healthcare industries. Research has been done on this issue in numerous contexts but research in Malaysian healthcare industry is still scarce. This study investigated the relationship between service quality, hospital accreditation on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The research examined five factors of service quality: responsiveness, assurance, tangibility, empathy, reliability. This study utilized nonprobability convenient sampling from 20 private hospitals that promote medical tourism in Klang Valley, Malaysia. A total of 378 medical tourists participated in the survey. Statistical tests carried out include descriptive statistics, internal consistency, reliability and validity. Correlation analysis and PLS Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was also conducted to determine the relationships of the variables. The main finding shows that there is a positive relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction, service quality and customer loyalty, hospital accreditation on customer satisfaction, and customer satisfaction on customer loyalty. However, hospital accreditation has no positive effect on patient loyalty. The findings of this study are useful to managers, board of directors and stakeholders of private hospitals to understand influential factors on patients' satisfaction and loyalty.