earticle

영어

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of consumers’ Internet search behavior regarding online culture content on medical tourism. For this study, we categorized online culture content into dramatic (drama) and popular (pop) culture. We analyzed the influence of online culture content on medical tourism and the effect of innovation and imitation on the diffusion process. The following major findings and implications were identified: (1) an analysis of search behavior revealed that online culture content influenced medical tourism, (2) evaluations of online culture content differed according to type of content (i.e., pop culture was a more important influence than drama culture on consumers’ medical tourism intentions), (3) pop culture content supported the diffusion of medical tourism for a longer period of time compared with drama culture content, and (4) in contrast to the innovation coefficient, the imitation coefficient of pop culture was higher than that of drama culture. The findings of this study may provide a better understanding of the effect of consumers’ search behavior on the global diffusion of medical tourism. To advance the knowledge obtained in this study, future studies should focus on medical tourism products and marketing.