Investigation and Evaluation of the impacting Factors on the Development of Medical Tourism in Shiraz Megalopolis

Annually, many of tourists travel to other countries in order to cure themselves and enjoy the tourist attractions of the country simultaneously. Currently, this type of tourism is very common and has turned into as asset in the pursuit of sustainable development and economic fertility in most countries. Regarding the fact that tourism is a low-cost industry with a relatively good profit, many developing countries have taken advantage of it and planned for its development. In line with what said, the present study aims at investigating and evaluating the impacting factors on the medical tourism development in Shiraz megalopolis. The dominant approach of the study is developmental with a descriptive, analytical methodology based on survey. For analyzing the data and testing the hypotheses, multivariate regression and path analysis were used. The statistical analysis was done by SPSS 19.0 and the map was drawn by Arc GIS. Findings depicted that while all the quality, culture, facilities, possibilities and ICT factors had a direct and positive relationship with the development of medical tourism, price bore a negative and reverse effect on it. In other words, the more prices increased, the less medical tourism developed and vice versa. Path analysis of the above mentioned also showed that all the factors namely, price, quality, culture, facilities, possibilities and ICT, in a direct and indirect way influenced the development of medical tourism in Shiraz.