Modeling the factors affecting the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities in medical tourism using interpretive structural method

Today, medical tourism is one of the most important branches of tourism and has many economic and social benefits for the country. Since Iran's rank, despite having suitable opportunities and relative regional advantages in this area, does not have a suitable position at the global level, it is necessary to identify and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities in medical tourism. This research is of a mixed type (combination of qualitative and quantitative methods) and has an exploratory nature, in the first step of interviews with experts, specialists and entrepreneurs of therapeutic tourism, the dimensions and categories affecting the recognition of entrepreneurial opportunities of therapeutic tourism using thematic analysis in MAX QDA software was extracted. These key categories are: environmental factors, business factors, entrepreneurial platforms, technological opportunities, entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneurial awareness, entrepreneurial characteristics and identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, then with the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) technique, the levels of key categories and the relationships between them are determined and introduced. became According to the results of the structures of environmental factors, technological opportunities and business factors have high influence and low impact. The constructs of identifying entrepreneurial opportunities and entrepreneurial consciousness have high dependence and low influence. Entrepreneurial knowledge structures, entrepreneurial characteristics, and entrepreneurial platforms have similar influence and degree of dependence. It is recommended that basic infrastructures, including culture building, establishment of information technology, and support for medical tourism startups should be included in the agenda.