The Identification and Prioritization of Effective Factors in Attracting Health Tourists to Kermanshah Province-West of Iran

Health tourism has drastically grown during the last decade as a form of specialized tourism. The development of this industry in Iran and Kermanshah requires attention to important factors such as marketing techniques, the performance of organizations and the surrounding environment situation. This study was designed and conducted to identify effective factors in attracting health tourists to Kermanshah Province. In this descriptive-analytical research, the opinions of 70 major experts involved in health tourism of Kermanshah province were investigated using a researcher-made questionnaire in 2011. Descriptive statistical methods, diagrams, tables and SPSS Version 18 were used to display and analyze the data. Cumulative frequency of responses with “much” and “very much” to the questions related to hypothesis one (the performance of the organizations related to health tourist attraction to the province), hypothesis two (marketing mix with health tourists to the province) and hypothesis three (the situation of surrounding environment of the province) were 95.%, 98.%, and 94.3 %, respectively. Thus, marketing factors, the performance of related organizations and the surrounding environment situation of the province are respectively the priorities in the prioritization among these three hypotheses. These findings are nearly in a similar line with several recent findings in Iran and the world. The prioritization of the mentioned factors in the hypotheses showed that effort for the development of the factors related to marketing mix should be placed in the highest priority in comparison with the other factors in Kermanshah province.