Özet:

The aim of this study is to determine the strategies for the development of the market by revealing the current situation of the border city Edirne, which is the transit and destination point of foreigners traveling by road for health tourism. For this purpose, the related literature was examined with the Systematic Literature Scan (SLS) technique and as a result of the interviews with the expert pool created in June 2023, the SWOT matrix (SWOT Analysis) for the health tourism of the province was created. The created matrix components were transformed into 44 question forms with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), one of the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods, and presented to expert evaluation in order to determine their degree of importance. While creating the SWOT matrix, it was determined that the city's health tourism activities were concentrated in the medical tourism market, and sub-components were created according to this situation. As a result of the comparisons in which expert opinion on medical tourism was sought, it was seen that the Strengths matrix components had the highest degree of importance, followed by the Opportunities sub-components. Strategies that ensure sectoral sustainability in the city are built on the measures that can be taken against weaknesses and threats, by focusing on strengths and opportunities. According to the research findings, the strongest matrix element is G1 (Competence of Health Institutions) and the one with the lowest level of importance is the absence of international accreditation in health tourism authorized institutions in the city. For the development of the health tourism market in the city, it is important to increase the number of qualified tourists with customized foreign market promotions. In this way, economic sustainability will be ensured by increasing the income of the businesses in the sector and the region. Among the most important strategies created in this context, there are promotions with differentiated marketing techniques for European countries, which are easy to transit, and border neighbors with a high average age, and creating a tourism portal that can directly communicate with patients by highlighting the specialist physicians in the city. From a macro point of view, it is important to prepare reports and studies that analyze the factors that can affect the government policies towards making Edirne, as a border city, and the Thrace Region, in which it is located, a free zone in health tourism, and attract local and foreign investors to the region. Diversification of tourism activities in the city will increase sectoral employment and employment in all businesses it affects, and contribute to economic sustainability.

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