Designing a Professional Qualification Model for Health Tourism Marketing after Corona (Covid-19)

Today, high-quality and competent human resources are one of the key assets in every system and industry. On the one hand, having such a capital can generate sustainable competitive advantages, and on the other hand, it is one of the most important factors for obtaining operational efficiency. Health tourism and related marketing activities are among the fields that are highly dependent on quality human resources. Also, due to the interaction and interaction of this industry with all segments of society and international health tourists, the competences of health tourism marketing activists is one of the most key issues in the mentioned industry. Despite this importance, studies show that there is not much theoretical attention to the issue of professional competence in health tourism marketing and the effective indicators of measuring such competence in the country that the present study aims to solve this research gap among domestic studies. The development of Iran's health tourism industry is not possible only by recognizing and relying on strengths and potentials; the weaknesses and challenges of this nascent industry in our country are issues that should not be ignored. Knowledge and awareness of issues and problems of health tourism helps managers, planners and policy makers in the field of tourism and health to use a systematic perspective and all-round efforts to improve and develop the state of health tourism in Iran. Due to the lack of theoretical studies in the field of what is the professional qualification of health tourism marketing, despite the efforts in the field of health tourism, we have not yet achieved a worthy position in this industry. Therefore, in this research, the design of the professional competency model for health tourism marketing has been investigated in the post-Corona period.

The current research is a mixed research because it uses qualitative and quantitative methods in order to collect and analyze data. To identify the components, qualitative approach and systematic review tools, inductive content analysis and Delphi were used, and in order to investigate the relationships between different components and its final verification, quantitative approach and structural equation modeling method were used. The statistical community for collecting qualitative research data consists of university professors, senior managers in the field of health, and deputies of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts of Yazd Province and senior managers of reputable tourism companies that used the snowball sampling method. 9 managers, assistants and supervisors were interviewed along with managers of tourism companies and academic experts. In the quantitative phase, the field method and standard questionnaire were used. Finally, 13 components were identified and the main research model was structured using MAXQDA software.

Therefore, the components resulting from the analyzes carried out in two different parts, i.e. the analysis of tourism marketing literature and the analysis of interviews conducted with experts and the combination of the obtained results, include the following 13 components, which are: General professional performance, analytical skills, specific professional skills, general professional skills, job information and awareness, job commitment, professional attitude, desire for career development, inherent individual characteristics, increasing factors of competence, basic job assignment knowledge, Bright personality and psychological abilities. Among them, psychological abilities and increasing competence factors were identified as the main and most effective dimensions in the path of better development of health tourism marketing during social distancing and after and the element of general professional performance is the least important among the investigated dimensions.

The unprecedented growth of the tourism industry in the past few years and the competition at the global level have faced the health tourism marketing discussion with new challenges, which has made researchers look for more effective marketing strategies. Therefore, the need for a systematic and targeted planning for marketing in Iran is increasing day by day. Therefore, one of the factors that can develop and improve the tourism industry in this area is the use of effective professional qualification tools and parameters. Based on this, there is a need for a model under the title of health tourism marketing professional qualifications that will be a guide for people and managers to create promote or develop qualifications that optimize health tourism skills. Based on this, the tourism industry and health tourism marketing are practically without people who are psychologically capable of showing behavioral flexibility and have a high level of interest in health tourism, curiosity, creativity, physical and mental health, and self-confidence, it will not be able to influence the behavior and decisions of customers. In addition, the ability of leadership in this industry strongly refers to the existence of charismatic performance in the individual, and the existence of such capabilities and characteristics means the ability to deeply influence others. As a result, with the disappearance of the existing weaknesses in Iran's health tourism value chain, each of the patients will confidently return to our country to receive more services. Customer satisfaction is what makes the reputation of the quality of Iran's medical and beauty services spread to health tourists across the borders.