Health Tourism Development with Qualitative Cognitive Mapping Approach

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.

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.

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.

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.