What Motivates Luxury Cruise Passengers? Experience from Greece

Given the lack of empirical research in explicating luxury cruises and travellers\u27 motivations, the present study adds knowledge to the industry by examining cruise passengers\u27 profiles and reasons for taking a cruise in Greece. This study offers insights into the motivations of 456 tourists who travelled to Greece for a delightful cruise experience. The population of this research consisted of passengers who disembarked at the Port of Piraeus after an 8-day cruise in the Aegean Sea. The findings pointed out that the motivation dimensions of cruise passengers are structured along three significant factors, "escape and relaxation," "culture and tradition", and "enjoyment and shopping," with the initial one being the most important. In addition, the hierarchical cluster analysis identified three clusters and the k-means cluster analysis determined the association of each member to the cluster. Finally, essential policy recommendations are given to all relevant stakeholders

Examining the link between terrorism and tourism demand: the case of Egypt

The current study explores the link between tourist demand and terrorism in Egypt using monthly data for the period from 1995 to 2018. We aim to investigate whether this relationship is unidirectional of bidirectional and whether it exhibits persistence in the long run. Terrorism is proxied by performing principal component analysis on the number of terrorist incidents and the number of resulting deaths and injuries. We test for cointegration employing a Vector Autoregressive Model with Error Correction. We find evidence of a long-term cointegrating relationship between tourism and terrorism. Our empirical results show that the direction of this causal relationship is from terrorism to tourism only, meaning that policymakers should not expect a rise in terrorist activity during periods of increased tourist arrivals. Our findings indicate that authorities should enforce strict measures against terrorism in order to promote safety and security within the tourism context

In- and Out-patient satisfaction assessment: the case of a greek General Hospital

Aim: The purpose of this research is to investigate in- and out-patients' satisfaction as revealed by their intention to recommend the Konstantopouleio General Hospital of Athens to friends and family. Material/Methodology/Approach: The final sample of the study consisted of 745 inpatients and 420 outpatients from a survey performed from June 2011 till October 2012. An ordered logit approach was used allowing the analysis of the satisfaction's response categories. Results: Findings demonstrate that the attention provided by medical and nursery stuff along with the hospital environment, are positively correlated with patients’ satisfaction for both groups of in- and out-patients. Among the demographic factors, the positive age effect is present in both groups, while the perceived health status plays a positive and significant role in shaping in-patient satisfaction, and education and insurance associate with out-patient satisfaction. Conclusions: Our study confirms the important role of all measures with respect to hospital performance. In general, hospitals and healthcare systems that invest in citizens’ evaluation evolvement programmes, will acquire valuable information to perform important transformational changes in healthcare services

In- and Out-patient satisfaction assessment: the case of a greek General Hospital

Aim: The purpose of this research is to investigate in- and out-patients' satisfaction as revealed by their intention to recommend the Konstantopouleio General Hospital of Athens to friends and family. Material/Methodology/Approach: The final sample of the study consisted of 745 inpatients and 420 outpatients from a survey performed from June 2011 till October 2012. An ordered logit approach was used allowing the analysis of the satisfaction's response categories. Results: Findings demonstrate that the attention provided by medical and nursery stuff along with the hospital environment, are positively correlated with patients’ satisfaction for both groups of in- and out-patients. Among the demographic factors, the positive age effect is present in both groups, while the perceived health status plays a positive and significant role in shaping in-patient satisfaction, and education and insurance associate with out-patient satisfaction. Conclusions: Our study confirms the important role of all measures with respect to hospital performance. In general, hospitals and healthcare systems that invest in citizens’ evaluation evolvement programmes, will acquire valuable information to perform important transformational changes in healthcare services

What shapes patient's satisfaction in countries' health care systems?

Patient satisfaction is an important measure of health care quality as it offers information on the provider’s success at meeting clients’ expectations and is a key determinant of patients’ perspective behavioral intention. This paper studies the relationship between patient’s satisfaction of healthcare system and a set of socio-economic and health provision indicators. We first construct an index of patient’s satisfaction and then, at a second stage, this index is related to economic and health provision variables. Our empirical analysis relies on 31 countries and for four years. Our findings support a strong positive association between citizens’ satisfaction and public health expenditures, number of physicians and nurses, and the age of the patient, while there is a negative evidence for private health spending and number of hospital beds

Citizens’ Preferences on Health Care Expenditure Allocation: Evidence from Greece

Priority setting and resource allocation across various health care functions is a critical issue in health policy and strategic decision making. As health resources are limited while there are so many health challenges to resolve, consumers and payers have to make difficult decisions about expenditure allocation. Our research focus on the (dis)agreement between citizens’ preferences and actual public health expenditure across broad health care functions, on whether this (dis)agreement is persistent, on whether various demographic factors amplify this (dis)agreement and to derive useful implications for public health policies. Using survey data of 3,029 citizens in Greece for the year 2012 and employing logit estimation techniques, we analyzed the effect of demographic and other factors in shaping citizens’ (dis)agreement with public health expenditure allocation. Our results demonstrate the important role of income, family members and residence in shaping citizens’ preferences regarding health expenditure priorities in almost all health care functions, while other demographic factors such as job, age, gender and marital status do partly associate and play a significant role

What shapes eHealth literacy of an individual?

This paper studies the ability of an individual in searching, analyzing and processing information from the Internet in order to address or solve health related issues, the so-called eHealth literacy and the factors that shape it. Understanding what influences eHealth in a country is particularly relevant for health markets as it provides guidelines for health marketers to develop targeted and tailored communication materials for relevant consumer segments, and further could suggest appropriate strategies for training the health illiterate part of the population. Using a unique sample based on survey data of 1064 individuals in Greece for the year 2013, we find that among demographic factors, age and education strongly affect the eHealth literacy and physical exercise among the life-style variables. Finally, other types of technology literacies such as computer skills and information obtained from the Internet further enhance the eHealth performance of an individual and have the greatest impact among all factors

Citizens’ Preferences on Health Care Expenditure Allocation: Evidence from Greece

Priority setting and resource allocation across various health care functions is a critical issue in health policy and strategic decision making. As health resources are limited while there are so many health challenges to resolve, consumers and payers have to make difficult decisions about expenditure allocation. Our research focus on the (dis)agreement between citizens’ preferences and actual public health expenditure across broad health care functions, on whether this (dis)agreement is persistent, on whether various demographic factors amplify this (dis)agreement and to derive useful implications for public health policies. Using survey data of 3,029 citizens in Greece for the year 2012 and employing logit estimation techniques, we analyzed the effect of demographic and other factors in shaping citizens’ (dis)agreement with public health expenditure allocation. Our results demonstrate the important role of income, family members and residence in shaping citizens’ preferences regarding health expenditure priorities in almost all health care functions, while other demographic factors such as job, age, gender and marital status do partly associate and play a significant role

What shapes patient's satisfaction in countries' health care systems?

Patient satisfaction is an important measure of health care quality as it offers information on the provider’s success at meeting clients’ expectations and is a key determinant of patients’ perspective behavioral intention. This paper studies the relationship between patient’s satisfaction of healthcare system and a set of socio-economic and health provision indicators. We first construct an index of patient’s satisfaction and then, at a second stage, this index is related to economic and health provision variables. Our empirical analysis relies on 31 countries and for four years. Our findings support a strong positive association between citizens’ satisfaction and public health expenditures, number of physicians and nurses, and the age of the patient, while there is a negative evidence for private health spending and number of hospital beds

What shapes eHealth literacy of an individual?

This paper studies the ability of an individual in searching, analyzing and processing information from the Internet in order to address or solve health related issues, the so-called eHealth literacy and the factors that shape it. Understanding what influences eHealth in a country is particularly relevant for health markets as it provides guidelines for health marketers to develop targeted and tailored communication materials for relevant consumer segments, and further could suggest appropriate strategies for training the health illiterate part of the population. Using a unique sample based on survey data of 1064 individuals in Greece for the year 2013, we find that among demographic factors, age and education strongly affect the eHealth literacy and physical exercise among the life-style variables. Finally, other types of technology literacies such as computer skills and information obtained from the Internet further enhance the eHealth performance of an individual and have the greatest impact among all factors