Presenting a Conceptual Model of Health Tourism with Emphasis on Word-of-Mouth Advertising in Health Centers: A Grounded Theory Approach

Health tourism is a new form of marketing in the tourism industry which has been growing in recent years, health tourism is done to improve the health of people and to take them out of their place of residence.the aim if this article is presenting Health Tourism Model with emphasis on word of mouth advertising in health centers.

This study purpose is applied and in terms of collecting data is non-experimental and descriptive data. The researcher has attempted to identify the factors affecting the concept of health tourism by emphasizing the role of word of mouth advertising by qualitative method and using interviewing with twenty managers of Health Tourism Center, and academic experts and finaly data analyzed and presented by phenomenological approach

The researcher then analyzes the data through open, axial, selective coding of the final results of his research into a model, with six main dimensions, including market attractiveness, strategy, service diversification, internal conditions, word of mouth advertising, health tourism, and Thirty-three sub-dimensions have been presented.

According to the results, it can be said that decision makers can collect and categorize the factors influencing health tourism concept.