Özet:

Health tourism includes tourism activities aimed at mental and physical healing in individuals with the integration of vacation and therapeutic services. In addition to the changes in consumer's tourism perceptions and demands, health tourism is developing and spreading in line with the advances in science and technology. The aim of this study is to explore the health tourism potential of the province of Muğla from the perspective of health institutions and organizations, tourism operators, civil society organizations and local governments. Thus, it is aimed at determining the general opinions of health tourism stakeholders on the subject, the conditions of attention to health tourism, the practices that can be classified within the framework of health tourism and the expectations on the subject of health tourism. In the research conducted with the quality research methods, the maximum diversity sampling has been adopted. The data collected from 19 people through the interview technique was examined by visual analysis. The research finds that health tourism stakeholders pay attention to health tourism and support their development due to their positive economic effects. The stakeholders consider Muğla’s health tourism potential to be highly evaluated, but it is not possible to reach the position it deserves due to its lack of infrastructure and superstructure. The research results presented recommendations to the subject-related practitioners and researchers for the sustainable development of health tourism. *This study, produced by Cesim DALAN’s master’s thesis, was presented as a declaration entitled “A Qualitative Research To Evaluate Health Tourism Potential” at the 4th Congress of International Applied Social Sciences (C-iasoS 2020) held between 22 and 24 October 2020.

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