This book is a master thesis. In most developed countries with open-market hospital systems marketing of hospital services has become more and more important. It has been shown that word-of-mouth-related factors such as 'hospital reputation' or 'recommendation' are important criteria for the consumer's decision, but so far the influence of word-of-mouth factors is not fully understood. In this work, Germany is taken as a model for a free-selection customer market, and the aim of this work was understand the importance of peer group opinion, doctor's referrals and media perception in hospital...