Policy-Making Challenges in the Field of Health Tourism in Iran

Paying attention to policy-making in local sustainable development, will not only strengthen national endogenous economic growth, but also increase employment rates and GDP particularly in the public service sector. In spite of the efforts made in recent years, health tourism has not yet been well placed in the institutional structure of the country and the existing regulations, and it is far from the objective set forth in the vision document, which is to make Iran the first in the field of health tourism among the countries of the region. However, in development programs, the government has always been required, based on its planning, to provide a significant part of the health and medical needs of the country through the export of goods, medical services, and health tourism. The present research tries to answer the following questions by adopting a qualitative approach based on the thematic analysis method, which seeks out the output of the basic, organizing, and inclusive themes related to the research question. The problem is that health tourism in the country faces what challenges in the field of legislation and implementation? What measures did institutions responsible for promoting and developing this sector of the economy take? What challenges and requirements do the experience of successful countries in this field remind us? Research findings indicate that policy-making challenges in this area are divided into four sections: economic challenges, socio-cultural challenges, political challenges and administrative challenges. Among them, in order to promote health tourism status, attention to political and administrative challenges in the policies development phase is more important.