Health Tourism Development with Qualitative Cognitive Mapping Approach - Payesh (Health Monitor)
Volume 18, Issue 5 (September - October 2019)                   Payesh 2019, 18(5): 455-464 | Back to browse issues page

XML Persian Abstract Print


1- Faculty of Human Sciences, Science and Art University, Yazd, Iran
2- Jahad Daneshgahi of Yazd Province, Yazd, Iran
Abstract:   (4589 Views)
Objective (s): Iran is one of the active centers of health tourism in the West Asia (Middle East). Due to the importance of the medical tourism industry from economic perspective and the potentials that exist in Iran, the purpose of this study was to investigate and analyze the internal factors affecting the development of health tourism.
Methods: This was a qualitative study. After comprehensive review of literature a sample of experts were interviewed in order to find out internal factors affecting the development of health tourism. Then, using techniques related to fuzzy cognitive mapping approach and social networks analysis, health tourism development model was extracted and scenarios for improving the situation on the model were tested.
Results: In all 28 experts were interviewed. The findings illustrated different factors that contributed to the rapid growth of the health tourism industry. The most important factors included: marketing, security, having specialized staff in various medical fields, as well as the number of medical centers.
Conclusion: Considering the potential of health tourism in Iran and the results of this research, it is suggested to focus on the main factors identified by this study and take step by step actions to develop health tourism with a proper planning.
Full-Text [PDF 537 kb]   (1854 Downloads)    
type of study: Descriptive |
Received: 2019/05/26 | Accepted: 2019/09/15 | ePublished ahead of print: 2019/09/29 | Published: 2019/11/11

References
1. Azizi F, Zahedi Sh. Identifying and assessing the barriers to health tourism development in Yazd province. Health Information Management 2015; 6: 806-799
2. Khani S, Shaghani, F, Jabbari Beirami, H. Identification and prioritization of factors affecting the attraction of health tourists to Kermanshah province, west of Iran. Journal of Research in Health Image 2012; 6: 18-23
3. Barimani F, Ramezanzadeh Sabouhi M, Nozar Asl S. Competitive assessment of health tourism destinations with emphasis on the resources and attractions of Ramsar spa springs. Journal of Geography and Planning 2018; 23: 25-51
4. Mahdavi Y, Mardani Sh, Hashemidehaghi Z, Mardani N. The بactors in development of health tourism in Iran. International Journal of Travel Medicine and Global Health 2013; 1: 113-118
5. Badulescu D, Badulescu A. Medical tourism: between entrepreneurship opportunities & bioethics: narrative review article. Iranian Journal of Public Health 2014; 43: 406-415
6. Karami F, Bayati Khatibi M, Talebzadeh Shooshtari A. Identifying and prioritizing factors affecting the development of medical tourism with an emphasis on domestic tourists in the study: Mashhad. Geography and Geography Magazine 2016; 14: 109-128
7. Morovaty Sharifabadi A, Asadian Ardakani F. Presentation of health tourism development model with fuzzy topsis integrated approach and interpretative structural modeling in Yazd province. Journal of Health Management 2014; 55: 73-88
8. Abbasi F, Ramezani Y, Houshmand M. Investigating and prioritizing the factors affecting internet acceptance in the development of tourism. Journal of Tourism and Development 2018; 7: 100-118
9. Kharazmi A, Rahnama M, Javan J. Factors affecting the promotion of health tourism comparing the views of foreign tourists and internal managers. North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences Journal 2016; 8: 405-416 [DOI:10.18869/acadpub.jnkums.8.3.405]
10. Nikraftar T, Hosseini G, Moghadam A. Identifying the effective factors in the recruitment of iranian medical tourists. Journal of Entrepreneurship Development 2016; 9: 731-748
11. Mansourian S, Shojaee M, Sade E. Evaluation of internal relationships of medical tourism empowerment using structural interpretative modeling. Journal of Tourism and Development 2017; 6: 18-38
12. Maleki S, Tavangar M. Investigation and analysis of challenges of Mashhad health tourism from the point of view of foreign patients. Geography Magazine and Urban Space Development 2015; 2: 153-165
13. Saadatnia F, Mehregan M. Determining & prioritizing factors affecting to increase customers attraction of medical tourism from the perspective of arabic countries. International Journal of Marketing studies 2014; 6: 155-162 [DOI:10.5539/ijms.v6n3p155]
14. Singh L. An evaluation of medical tourism in India. African Journal of Hospitality Tourism & Leisure 2014; 3: 115-131
15. Carlos Leitao N. Portuguese tourism demand: a dynamic panel data analysis. International Journal of Economic & Financial Issues 2015; 5: 673-677
16. Hopkins L, Labonte R, Runnels V, Packer C. Medical tourism today: what is the state of existing knowledge? Journal of Public Health Policy 2010; 31: 98-185 [DOI:10.1057/jphp.2010.10]
17. Taghizadeh Yazidi M.R, Shami Zanjani M, Haghighi M, Abu Hasham Abadi F. Components and زontent of the websites of the facilitating medical tourism. Journal of Tourism Management Studies 2016; 11: 1-18
18. Mohammadi Yeganeh B, Islamy Perekhany E, Islamy Prakhani S. The role of advertising tools in marketing and attracting tourists a case study: Ardabil province. Geographical Quarterly of Tourism 2016; 5: 1-17
19. Chen E. Protective factors for health among low-socioeconomic-status individuals. Current Direction in Psychological Science 2012; 4: 81-85 [DOI:10.1177/0963721412438710]
20. Jafari S.M, Jandaghi Gh, Rafiee S. Identifying and prioritizing the factors affecting the choice of a medical tourism destination. Journal of Health Information Management 2018; 15: 83-89
21. Rezaei M, Taherzadeh Z. Evaluating the effect of spatial service capacities of medical centers on the rate of therapeutic tourists case study: Yazd city. Urban Tourism Journal 2015; 2: 291-303
22. Reed C.M. Medical tourism. Medical Clinics of North America 2008; 92: 1433-1446 [DOI:10.1016/j.mcna.2008.08.001]
23. Gifford B, Park S, Anand S. Perceptions about the impact of global medical travel on poorer populations in India. World Hospitals and Health Services Journal 2009; 45: 6-10
24. Noori Hekmat S, Jabari A, Dehnavi R, Mardani R. Preparedness for hospitals to enter the medical tourism industry of Isfahan 2014; 11: 506-514
25. Mousavinejad S, Adali O, Hariri T, Valipour Yagani N, Meshkani Z. Medical reception capacity in hospital. Quarterly Journal of Hospital 2016; 15 [: 64-70
26. Mattiqi S, Sadeghi M, Delalat M. The role of security in the development of international tourism case study: foreign tourists of Yazd. Urban Tourism Journal 2016; 3: 77-91
27. SalehDost M, Tajzadeh Samin A. Prioritization of film tourism marketing activities. Urban Planning and Development 2015; 4: 189-208
28. Delgoshayi B, Ravaghi H, Abolhasani N. Evaluation of the importance of medical tourism practice in Tehran province from the perspective of medical tourism and medical services. Quarterly Journal of Hospital 2012; 11: 36-45
29. Kazemi Z. Study of the effective factor for attracting medical tourism in Iran. Unpublished master thesis Lulea University of Technology: Netherlands. 2007
30. Nemati V, Ebrahimpour H, Babayi Y, Abasgholizadeh N. Evaluation of barriers to medical tourism development case study: Yazd. Journal of Health and Hygiene 2016; 7: 118-133
31. Naserpour M, Mousavi S, Sepahand R. The effect of non-therapeutic factors on the development of tourism. Journal of Tourism and Development 2018; 7: 195-212
32. Goodarzi M, Taghvayi M, Zangi Abadi A. Development of internal medical tourism in Shiraz. Journal of Health Information Management 2014; 11: 485-496

Rights and Permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.