Motivations and experiences of Mainland Chinese medical tourists in Hong Kong

One of the most important reasons for obstetric patients from Mainland China to give birth in Hong Kong was to avoid China’s ‘One Child’ policy, and perceived discrimination by the medical tourists emerges in the form of less favourable service and less information sharing.

Abstract

Medical tourism has been developing very rapidly in recent years and Hong Kong has emerged as a new medical tourism destination. The purpose of the study is to explore the motivations and experiences of a sample of medical tourists in Hong Kong and hence semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with obstetric patients from Mainland China. The findings indicate that one of the most important reasons for their traveling to give birth in Hong Kong was to avoid China's 'One Child' policy. Variations in staff attitudes were also found among different hospitals and even in the same hospital. The findings also suggest that perceived discrimination by the medical tourists emerges in the form of less favourable service and less information sharing.