The salient place brand factor(s) influencing medical tourism to South Africa

Regardless of its importance to the global tourism economy, there is still limited academic inquiry relating to Africa within the context of non-traditional tourism typologies, such as medical tourism. This article contributes to the broader understanding of the potential factors influencing medical tourism by extending place branding theory to the decision-making process of tourists within the South African medical tourism context. The present study examines the place brand - medical tourism nexus using data generated from a sample of n=233 conveniently sampled inbound tourists. Exploratory Factor and Multiple Regression Analyses were applied to the data. It emerged that South Africa's socio-cultural place brand was found to be a statistically significant heuristic cue, positively influencing medical tourism to the country, pivoting aspects such as the country's cultural practices and colonial heritage, as some of the key considerations in the decision making the process of tourists when considering South Africa as a medical tourism destination. Critically, the results associate medical tourism with the socio-cultural profile of South Africa, through the place brand as a heuristic cue for information symmetry. The study enriches both place branding and medical tourism discourse by providing empirical evidence of the nexus between the two constructs. Practically, destination marketers are provided with critical insights into tourist perspectives, and it is recommended that African governments and medical tourism facilitators collaborate to develop a nation branding theory-based framework as a decision support model for proactively managing and communicating the image of South Africa as a medical tourism destination