steeply lower prices provided by hospitals especially in India,
Malaysia and Thailand. Africa has positioned itself primarily as
a cosmetic surgery destination, frequently linking its offerings to
safari and site-seeing options, and emphasizes more the testimonial
aspects of past patients than other regions.
Most of the other web page features assessed are clustered
closely enough to one another and to the intersection of the axes to
make generalizations difficult. It appears that all regions have
somewhat similar ideas of what needs to be included in their web
pages; the two areas that most differ between North America and
all other regions is a US emphasis on hospital accreditation e
a change that could easily be made by other websites if accreditation
proves to be as important an element as apparently believed by
the facilitators in North America. The second competitive advantage
held by North America may be more difficult for other regions
to emulate, as provision of employer information requires a fairly
intimate understanding of the workings of American business, so
this may remain the primary purview of North American facilitator
websites. On the other hand, it is notable that the listing of specific
hospitals with which a facilitator works is the web page content
item most distant from North American websites.
4.2. Services noted on web page
The correspondence analysis of the services noted as offered on
the websites demonstrates greater variability, and some clear
grouping of services by region Fig. 2.
The analysis of this contingency table shows a 65.6% contribution
from Axis 1, with North American websites having the greatest
impact on this axis, and European websites having the greatest
contributory portion to an overall 19.31% contribution from Axis 2,
for a total explained difference of 84.12%. Once again, the third
dimension is significantly below the advised level of 20% in order to
be included as an additional dimension (Hair et al., 2006). Therefore,
this model is also presented as a two dimensional.
The quality numbers for the five regions under review for
service offerings are: North America, .995; Central and South
America, .693; Europe, .929; Asia, .563; and Africa, .787, demonstrating
that the two regions most different from the other three
are North America, and by the slightest of margins, Europe over
Africa. Examining the themes of the two axes suggests that axis one
generally has aligned service offerings from the left side emphasizing
services that help the potential traveler adjust to the idea of
traveling for medical treatment and preparing for the trip to the
right side placing a greater emphasis on services to be provided
once the traveler is in the destination country. The second axis, it is
suggested, runs from one end emphasizing personal involvement
with the traveler in the destination country to one which places
greater importance on coordination of logistical details for the
traveler.
North American agencies clearly are more frequently providing
services to multiple countries than any other region. This may be
explained as these agencies are primarily servicing outbound
travelers, while the other regions are generally dedicated to one
country or area. North American facilitators also are more likely to
offer assistance in transference of medical records, in providing
destination area cell phone support, and in working with clients in
financing options to pay for both travel and medical costs. Finally,