Medical Tourism Through a Global Services Marketing Lens: A Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda

Medical tourism involves service interactions across countries and across pre-travel, treatment, recovery, and post-treatment contexts. This review examines marketing-oriented research through a global services marketing perspective. Using a domain-based SPAR-4-SLR design, 74 peer-reviewed articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science between 2009 and April 2026 were synthesized. Inductive thematic analysis identified five dimensions: core clinical and service quality; trust and institutional assurance; humanistic, cultural, and emotional care; destination branding and digital trust; and technology, innovation, and integrated value creation. TCCM was used to organize the literature across theory, context, characteristics, and methodology. Research concentrates on service quality, trust, and behavioral intentions, while institutional protection, recovery, post-treatment continuity, and multi-stakeholder relationships remain less developed. The review contributes by organizing medical tourism as an international service process and by distinguishing trust according to its service referent. These findings inform six propositions and a separate Health Belief Model direction for empirical work.