An Examination of E-Complaints Regarding Health Tourism Enterprises

Abstract

Purpose – The analysis of electronic complaints directed at medical tourism businesses is of critical importance for identifying service quality issues and enhancing patient satisfaction. The objective of this study is to identify the most common areas of dissatisfaction and determine opportunities for improvement in the sector by conducting a thematic analysis of patient complaints regarding medical tourism businesses in Kuşadası. The research also aims to fill the gap in the international literature regarding destination-based, qualitative, and cross-cultural comparative e-complaint analysis, and to provide a theoretical contribution to the reinterpretation of the SERVQUAL model within the context of health tourism.

Design/methodology/approach – A total of 302 1- to 3-star complaint reviews from the Google Reviews platform for 46 health tourism businesses with the most recent licenses issued by the Ministry of Health were examined. The data underwent qualitative content analysis using Braun and Clarke's six-stage thematic analysis approach with the MAXQDA 24 software. Two independent coders were involved in the coding process; inter-coder agreement was calculated as α = 0.85 using Krippendorff's Alpha coefficient. The analysis resulted in the creation of 1,102 codes, classified under 12 main themes and 41 subthemes.

Findings – Patient complaints were most concentrated around three main themes: (1) Staff Behavior and Communication Issues, (2) Pricing Policies and Lack of Transparency, and (3) Shortcomings in Service Quality. The findings indicate that the empathy dimension is more prominent than expected in medical tourism, that price transparency emerges as an independent determinant of satisfaction, and that communication complaints are concentrated in two distinct categories: linguistic and behavioral.

Discussion and Conclusion – This study systematically identifies the underlying causes of patient dissatisfaction in medical tourism businesses. The research makes three key theoretical contributions to the literature: (1) empirical evidence indicating that the SERVQUAL dimensions need to be reweighted in the context of health tourism, (2) the definition of the concept of “price transparency” as an independent service quality dimension, and (3) the recommendation that communication complaints should be divided into two sub-dimensions: “linguistic” and “behavioral.” The study's findings serve as a guide for stakeholders in the health tourism sector to develop data-driven improvement strategies.