From Persuasion to Advocacy: Understanding the Medical Tourist Journey Through Patient Experience

Despite growing interest, medical tourism research has largely examined virtual-influencer-mediated pretreatment persuasion and post-treatment advocacy separately, offering a fragmented view of the patient journey. This study addresses this gap through a two-wave longitudinal framework comprising of international medical tourists in Pune, Bengaluru, and Chennai, incorporating a three-month temporal lag between waves. The study began with 350 wave-1 participants, of whom 173 completed both waves and constituted the matched longitudinal panel used for the reported analyses. Data were analyzed using PLS-SEM. Findings indicate that destination image and psychological reactance indirectly influence experience through engagement and perceived message effectiveness, while experience shapes credibility, authenticity, trust, and word-of-mouth. These findings position experience as the mechanism connecting persuasion-stage processes with post-treatment advocacy.