Identifying the effective factors in the development of health tourism in Mazandaran province using McKuda software

Health tourism as one of the types of tourism has attracted the attention of many countries especially in recent years. There are many places in Mazandaran province where tourists go to relax and treat skin disorders. Mazandaran benefits from the attractions of all three types of health tourism, i.e., treatment, wellness and medical. There are effective factors in health tourism that can be a key success factor in the health tourism industry, and pioneer countries are the ones who meet the needs of these tourists by identifying these effective factors. In this research, it is intended to investigate the factors affecting health tourism in Mazandaran province. It seems that conducting this research and its results can open the way for the promotion of health tourism in the country, including in Mazandaran, and increase the number of health tourists. The current research is theoretical and practical for the use of relevant centers and companies. According to the nature of the subject of this research, it is causal. For this purpose, by using documentary studies and libraries and through interviews with 16 experts and experts in the field of health tourism, the main components of the investigated phenomenon were determined. In this method, the effective and basic factors were first identified and then the effective factors were ranked using MACQDA software. The results show Cultural and social dimension is the most important factor with 42.4%, followed by economic dimension with 23%. After that, the service dimension is in the third place with 21.8% and the political and administrative dimension is in the last place with 12.7%.