Online Trust: Examining Identity on Health Related Tourism Websites in Southeast Asia

Health tourism is the process of leaving one's home country to travel to a destination country in order to seek medical treatment. In recent years, health tourism has seen a sharp growth, particularly in Southeast Asia. Fuelled with the role of internet to offer information about medical destinations, the trustworthiness of health tourism websites plays a crucial role in the decision-making process of tourist patients. Although trust has been examined in different areas, trust construction of health related tourism websites via the focal theme of identity is still at its infancy. This study examined the construction of trust on three health tourism hospitals in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. The findings of this study revealed how trust is constructed via the central resources of identity. The findings have significant implications for website developers and health tourism researchers as well as providing key insights on trust construction.