Abstract:

First thing come to mind when we think of tourism is various activities like visiting new places, going on vacation and going swimming etc. Apart from these, travelling with a purpose of treatment and rehabilitation is also included in tourism recently. This specific type of tourism which is about travelling to another country for the purpose of getting health service is health tourism. Medical, spa-beauty, rehabilitation and old-disabled tourisms are within the scope of health tourism. Medical tourism which comprises a great part of the health tourism is programmed journeys taken to another country by patients with the aim of medical intervention and treatment. Services provided in the field of medical tourism have lately increased in our country like in the rest of the world. In addition, studies on health free zone which is planned to provide significant contribution to health tourism in our country are carried out. In our study, we investigate the present potential in the field of medical tourism of Dokuz Eylül University Hospital which is the most important university hospital in the region by evaluating the place of Turkey and İzmir in medical tourism sector and health free zone to be set in İzmir.

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