Investigating the Role of Institutional Quality on Development of Medical Tourism Industry in Iran: Gravitational Search Algorithm and Firefly Algorithm

On one hand, countries dependent on oil revenue have reached the conclusion that oil cannot be a reliable source of income and the oil dependent economy has become a major challenge for oil-exporting countries. On the other hand, in recent years tourism has become one of the most dynamic sectors of global economy and income from different capacities of the tourism industry is sought to replace the income from oil sales. Medical tourism is one of the important areas of the tourism industry. In this study, the effect of institutional indicators on medical tourism in Iran have been investigated using an optimization approach. The results of the study indicate that, Improvement in institutional quality index, gross fixed capital investment in public and private hospitals, gross fixed capital in tourism services, as well as an increase in the number of service providers to medical tourists, including general practitioners and specialists, and an increase in real effective exchange rates in Iran has led to an increase in the attraction of medical tourists to the country.