A Qualitative Research on Medical Tourism Potential of Alanya/Turkey in the Concept of International Service Trade

Abstract

Abstract:Reverse movement of patients in search of cheaper medical treatment from developed countries to undeveloped countries caused the birth of new phenomenon called medical tourism. Moreover, increasing value of medical tourism market each year draws attention of countries that are aiming to increase their economic growth. In this regard, the potential of Alanya as a medical tourism destination has been tried to determine in this paper. Therefore, it can be said that, the main objective of this research is to determine medical tourism potential of Alanya by taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of the destination as well. For this purpose, face-to-face interviews were conducted with an expert from each hospital and the county health department in Alanya, then these were transcripted into word documents and analyzed with NVivo 8.0. Consequently, it has been found that medical tourism potential of Alanya consist of thirteen sub-factors, which are respectively "Workforce", "Climate", "Central Asian Countries", "Geographic Location", "Incentive Policies", "Price", "Facilitators", "Service Quality", "Accessibility", "Hospital Investments", "Technological Equipment", "Conjectural Situation" and "Vacation". It can be said that, Alanya can benefit from job creation potential, decreasing foreign currency deficit because of service export and spillover effect to other sectors like in other destinations by using its potential to take part in medical tourism. * This paper is derived from a master thesis defended at

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