Identify Factors Affecting Medical Tourism Attraction in Iran

Medical tourism as one of the dimensions of sustainable development to help the country's economy dynamics. Little research has been conducted in the field of medical tourism. Based on this fact there is a lot of potential in the field medical tourist attraction in Iran, this study examines the factors in deciding the tourists to choose Iran as a country of destination.
This is a descriptive study of correlation kind. The statistical community, includes all visitors that came into the city of Shiraz for surgery and treatment. First, a preliminary study has been done through the distribution of a questionnaire among the 20 international medical tourists and variance estimated with the prototype at the level of 95% confidence. The sample size was calculated (96 cases). 87 people responded to the questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed based on the existing literature reviewed research. To assess the validity of the questionnaire comments of experts was used. Cronbach's alpha coefficient is 81.0 which shows the necessary reliability of the questionnaire.
The results of the research show that the path coefficient of information search (0/62) is a very important effect on the choice of Iran as a country of destination in the health tourist. Macro factors and stimulating demand with the path coefficients respectively (0/31 and 0/12) are in the next ranking. The results show that the advertising and media have critical impact on the Iranian elections as a destination country in health. Macro factors and stimulating demand are next in rank.
Due to the importance of medical tourism and income creation of this industry, one of the ways to attract tourists and influence on decision making of them is advertising and information. We can increase the demand for health tourism with using varied advertising tools.