UTAR Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) researchers, namely Seow Ai Na, Dr Choong Yuen Onn, Dr M. Krishna Moorthy and Chan Ling Meng’s research paper was recently awarded the “Most Downloaded Paper” award by Wiley International Journal of Tourism Research (IJTR), an international journal platform that promotes and enhances research developments in the field of tourism.
Proud researchers (from left): Dr Krishna, Dr Choong, Seow and Chan
Titled “Intention to Visit Malaysia for Medical Tourism Using the Antecedents of Theory of Planned Behaviour: A Predictive Model”, the paper aimed to examine the extended model of Theory of Planned Behaviour in predicting tourists’ intention in seeking medical tourism in Malaysia.
One of the researchers, Dr Choong explained, “The additional variables in this model are perceived risks, perceived benefits and resource availability. A total of 380 completed questionnaires have been collected from the foreign tourists who visited Malaysia. A comprehensive and vigorous structural equation modelling analysis has been performed for the data analysis. The results showed that perceived benefits and perceived costs are significantly related to attitude; resource availability is significantly related to perceived behavioural control; and attitude and subjective norm are significantly related to intention for medical tourism in Malaysia; however, the perceived behavioural control is found to be insignificant to intention.”
He added, “This research contributes in identifying the predictors of tourists’ intention by various parties such as Government, private medical service providers and medical tourism centres who can implement a more comprehensive medical tourism plan to encourage more favourable perception from potential medical tourists. In addition to medical treatment facilities, collaboration between doctors, therapists and service providers are also essential. They must give continuous support to the international patients in order to make medical tourism in Malaysia attractive. Other than this, the joint effort is needed among the government ministries and professional bodies on how to publicise medical tourism in Malaysia while at the same time minimise risks.”
“We are truly honoured to receive this appreciation from the International Journal of Tourism Research, which is currently a quartile two web of science ranking Journal in Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism”, said co-researcher Seow. She added, “We are definitely motivated to publish more papers that are related to the latest trend in the tourism industry and with this appreciation, we have certainly shown to the world that UTAR is always keeping abreast with the latest developments in the tourism industry and constantly encourages its staff to research on the latest trends in industries.”
Read about the research here.
IJTR promotes and enhances research developments in the field of tourism. The journal provides an international platform for debate and dissemination of research findings whilst also facilitating the discussion of new research areas and techniques.
IJTR continues to add a vibrant and exciting channel for those interested in tourism and hospitality research developments. It continues to include high quality research papers in any area of tourism, including reviews of literature in the field and empirical papers on tourism issues. The IJTR journal is currently indexed with Clarivate Analytics’ Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences and holding an impact factor of 2.449 as per JCR 2017. The IJTR journal is published bimonthly by John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey, United States.
© 2019 UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN DU012(A).
Wholly owned by UTAR Education Foundation Co. No. 578227-M LEGAL STATEMENT TERM OF USAGE PRIVACY NOTICE