Abstract:

Turkey has seen rapid growth in recent years with its variety of health and health tourism. Turkey is investing in tourism in order to increase its income from tourism and to attract more tourists while also implementing a diversification policy in tourism. In the diversification of tourism, one of the important types of tourism is medical tourism. Turkey has a great potential in medical tourism with specialized doctors, experienced health staff, medical technology, quality of service, hospitality, lower and upper building facilities. The aim of this study is to study the current situation of medical tourism in Turkey, which is a variety of health tourism, to determine whether there are problems in medical tourism and to develop recommendations. For this purpose, data were collected with 206 private hospital managers across Turkey using the survey method. The study has shown that many hospitals have a medical tourism understanding. The advertising problems, the negative image of the country, are defined as the elements that negatively affect the development of medical tourism in Turkey; health legislation problems, lack of financial support and lack of qualified staff are defined as a problem by managers. Following the content analysis, the recommendations made by the hospital managers for the development of medical tourism, the promotion, the creation of a joint wage rate and the accreditation of the topics have come to the forefront. In order to increase Turkey’s market share in medical tourism, it is necessary to promote abroad effectively and actively, to increase the number and quality of medical staff who know a foreign language, to develop the infrastructure facilities and to pay attention to accreditation.