Identification of Service Quality Gaps in Medical Tourism with Fuzzy Approach (Case Study: Ardabil City)

The service quality has an important role in attracting tourists, including medical tourists. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to identify the quality gaps in medical tourism service with fuzzy approach in Ardabil city. For this purpose, three gaps including 1- The gap between the perceptions of the managers of the treatment centers about patient expectations and patient expectations; 2. The gap between the perceptions of the managers of the treatment centers about patients' expectations and the actual characteristics of the service quality; and 3. The gap between patient expectations and patient perceptions have been examined. The population includes all Azarbaijan tourists entering the city of Ardabil and all doctors and specialists, dentists, pharmacists and medical science related specialists in the city of Ardabil. Using the Cochran formula, the sample size was 384 Azarbaijan patients and 100 employees of the treatment centers. In order to measure the research variables, the standard questionnaire of Padma et al. (2009) was used and its validity and reliability were evaluated respectively by content method and Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The quality gaps in medical tourism services were evaluated based on fuzzy method. The results showed that there is a gap between the perceptions of managers of health centers and patients' expectations. There was also a gap between the perceptions of managers of health centers about patients' expectations and the actual characteristics of the service quality. Finally, the results indicate a gap between patient expectations and patient perceptions. Therefore, all three research hypotheses were approved.