Recovery and Rebuilding of Healthcare Travel at Post COVID-19: Malaysia and the ASEAN Economic Community

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-076-3_10How to use a DOI?

Keywords

COVID-19; Healthcare Travel; Medical Tourism; Wellness Tourism; ASEAN Economic Community

Abstract

The unprecedented novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has put a halt in various sectors including tourism. Malaysia, along with other ASEAN state members, are not exceptional. This article aims to elucidate the existing collaboration between Malaysian and ASEAN healthcare travel post-pandemic and carve possible improvements for its state members. A qualitative document analysis was conducted on government and official reports using several keywords such as “pandemic”, “healthcare travel” and “recovery”. Findings are presented in two main themes namely (a) the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and (b) recovery and rebuilding. An analysis of the progress of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint 2016–2025 post-COVID-19 is presented. Findings from the reports describe the impact of COVID-19 on Malaysia’s tourism and healthcare travel industry, recovery and rebuilding phases, as well as possible avenues to improve collaboration with ASEAN through the AEC. Several essential findings reveal that Malaysia recognises certain ASEAN state members as current and emerging competitors. Nevertheless, this article asserts that a cohesive effort among the state members is crucial as Malaysia intends to explore new focus and niche markets. This article is preliminary as data is only collected through document analysis. Hence, future research is suggested to provide empirical evidence on the challenges and opportunities with AEC collaboration in light of rebuilding the healthcare travel industry. Empirical findings on the possible new markets for Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry can also be an avenue for future studies.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Norzayana Yusof
AU  - Huey Min Liew
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/07/29
TI  - Recovery and Rebuilding of Healthcare Travel at Post COVID-19: Malaysia and the ASEAN Economic Community
BT  - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on the Future of Asean 2023 (ICoFA 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 96
EP  - 107
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-076-3_10
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-076-3_10
ID  - Yusof2023
ER  -