Abstract
Under the term “digital health,” advanced medical technologies, disruptive innovations, and digital communication have gradually become inseparable from providing best practice healthcare. With the increasing importance of health and wellness tourism, thermalism has become a very competitive product wanted by tourists who need treatments that are not available in their country due to lack of availability or because they are quite expensive. Since tourism is integrated in the services sector, a set of relational marketing strategies can be applied to establish and maintain relationships with tourists. Therefore, it is important to understand how relational marketing can improve health and wellness tourism. Based on a combination of theoretical and practical research, this chapter explores the dynamic system and mechanism of innovation and development of digital relational marketing strategies in specific contexts of tourism (i.e., health and wellness tourism) considering cross-border. From an interdisciplinary perspective, the chapter presents insights for digital relationship marketing and tourism (health and well-being) and for economic development.
Top1. Introduction
According to Mesko et al. (2017), a new phenomenon we call “digital health”, and define as “the cultural transformation of how disruptive technologies that provide digital and objective data accessible to both caregivers and patients leads to an equal level doctor-patient relationship with shared decision-making and the democratization of care”, initiated changes in providing care and practicing medicine. As technological innovations become inseparable from healthcare and as healthcare systems worldwide are becoming financially unsustainable, a paradigm shift is imminent. Therefore, the competitive market is intense, marked by the constant launch of everyday products, and companies navigate a dynamic environment characterized by continuous change. Consumers, accustomed to instant information and pressed for time, demand quick solutions, compelling organizations to make swift decisions. In consequence the relevance of marketing has increased, along with advances in technology and that changes the scenario of the market constantly, showing consumers increasingly stringent, sensitive not only to price but in search for products and services that offer differentials and aggregate values. Within a framework of strong renewals, we can say that the role of marketing is to make companies realize the importance of meeting customer needs (Bricci, Fragata, & Antunes, 2016). Relational marketing reflects a business philosophy and a strategic orientation that allows companies to focus on satisfying the needs of current customers to retain them instead of acquiring new ones (Rosario & Casaca, 2023). Relationship marketing focuses on forming and maintaining a relationship between the client and the company, based on the personalization of attention, data collection and fundamental support for the client, with the purpose of generating trust, satisfaction, a lasting relationship, important information for decision making, recommendation and expansion of the client portfolio, among others. It is concluded that the fundamental objective of relationship marketing is customer loyalty since it is the guarantor of a firm, satisfactory and lasting relationship with a view to increasing sales and the success, in general, of the company (Burbano-Perez, Velástegui-Carrasco, Villamarin-Padilla, & Novillo-Yaguarshungo, 2018).
Tourism is a dynamic, transversal relational phenomenon. It must therefore be analyzed and understood as a social phenomenon, understood from a systemic perspective. This requires tools to facilitate the analysis both of its different components and the relationships between them. However, this cannot be done from a single perspective, as tourism is such a complex phenomenon that such a procedure will depend on the objective of the analysis and study, always bearing in mind that the relationships between these components and dimensions should be considered key elements of analysis (Pulido-Fernández & Merinero-Rodríguez, 2018).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cross-Border Regions: A cross-border region is a territorial entity that is made of several local or regional authorities that are co-located yet belong to different nation states. Cross-border regions exist to take advantage of geographical conditions to strengthen their competitiveness.
Relationship Marketing: Is a strategy of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that emphasizes customer retention, satisfaction, and lifetime customer value. Its purpose is to market to current customers versus new customer acquisition through sales and advertising.
Digital Healthcare: The broad scope of digital health includes categories such as mobile health (mHealth), health information technology (IT), wearable devices, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalized medicine. From mobile medical apps and software that support the clinical decisions doctors make every day to artificial intelligence and machine learning, digital technology has been driving a revolution in health care. Digital health tools have the vast potential to improve our ability to accurately diagnose and treat disease and to enhance the delivery of health care for the individual.