The operational efficiency of health tourism industries in three provinces of northeastern Thailand

Abstract

© 2016 International Information Institute. Health tourism industries have efficiently supported the economy of three northeastern provinces for many years. Since there have been a few researches on measuring the operational efficiency of the health tourism industries, this study primarily focused on the characteristics of tourists in three northeastern provinces of Thailand: Nongkhai, Udonthani and Sakol-Nakorn, together with to measure the operational efficiency of these industries, totally 104 firms. The concept of Metafrontier DEA-based approach was theoretically adopted in this study. The findings showed that the majority of tourism industries in Nongkhai and Sakol-Nakorn were Thai traditional massage, and a therapy message was mostly found in Udonthani. Correspondingly, the three provinces had a small number of employees (1-5 persons) and massage beds (1-5 beds). The two groups of tourists who visit Nongkhai, Udonthani, and Sakol-Nakorn for healthy leisure were group tourists and individual tourists, the largest number of whom were working-age people, 40-60 years old, and older people aged more than 60 years old. Most of them are female. Furthermore, Based on the regional frontier, the analysis of operational efficiency of health tourism revealed that Sakol-Nakorn yields the highest level with an average score of 0.852, followed by Nongkhai and Udonthani with an average score of 0.789 (high level) and 0.610 (medium level), respectively. The efficiency score varied due to the quantity of inputs used and quantity of outputs yielded in the different studied areas. The researchers recommend that an entrepreneur should increase the productivity and labors' skills. Additionally, the initiate costs, including the massage equipment, water and electricity fee, consumed materials, a number of masseurs/masseuse, and shop decorative items, should be economically used to heighten operational efficiency.