Medical tourism in Shiraz

Background: One of the efficient uses of national resources in countries is the development of medical tourism. The number of patients who are travelling from developed countries to third world countries for medical reasons is increasing. Using the marketing mix elements is one way to attract these patients. Materials and Methods: This study was a descriptive, analytic, and cross‑sectional one. The research community included all the public and private hospitals of Shiraz among which, seven public and nine private hospitals were studied. The study data were collected through a researcher‑made checklist whose face and content validity was confirmed by the experts. Then, the data were entered into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software and the statistical tests such as t‑test, Mann‑Whitney, Kruskal‑Wallis, and Pearson were used for data analysis. Results: The study findings showed there was a significant difference between public and private hospitals in price and promotion mix (P < 0.05). These hospitals in the other mixes, had no significant difference (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Identifying the strength and weakness points of hospitals can help health service managers to succeed in attracting medical tourists by use of hospital strengths and decrease the weaknesses.

Iran, marketing mix elements, medical tourism, medical tourists