Abstract

Today, combination of medicine and tourism has turned into a new form of industry called health tourism. Health tourism industry has experienced a dramatic growth over the last decade. This industry is an opportunity for hospitals to extend their services to patients from other countries. The present study aims to identify factors contributing to the attraction of medical tourism along with ranking factors affecting customer satisfaction of Persian Gulf Countries .For this purpose, after studying the existing literature and matching the resulting data with the environmental conditions of the study six factors “the expertise and skill level of the hospital staff”, “hospital facilities and equipments”, “costs”, “the way patients are treated by the staff and their relationship”, “shared beliefs and values”, “tourist and travel facilities” were determined and based on them questionnaires were designed and distributed to a number of patients of Persian Gulf Countries as well as the managers of the Razavi Hospital in Mashhad, where specialized medical tourism services are provided .Investigations indicated that from the viewpoint of both managers and patients, the most important factor affecting the attraction of the medical tourism of Razavi Hospital in Mashhad is the costs. These costs consist of medical expenses (such as hospital, medicine and tests costs), costs of travel and accommodation (such as hotel and guesthouse), transportation costs within the city and side expenditures (including visiting pilgrimage places and entertainment spots). Therefore, lowering the costs of medical treatments can be a strategy that the hospitals can benefit from in order to enter the medical tourism market.

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