Identification of areas susceptible to developing health tourism in Mazandaran province by Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and using Geographic Information System (GIS)

Providing the conditions for health tourism as one of the Purposeful and economical types of tourism, needs more attention of planners and specialists in the field of tourism. Therefore, identification of the areas that are prone to health tourism and its development capabilities is essential. In addition to therapeutic capabilities, time and economic conditions for the benefits of treatment, environmental features of region`s tourism is also one of the effective factors in choosing the destination of health tourism. In this regard, the present study intends to identify the regions which are prone to developing health tourism in terms of environmental capabilities of the region by the method of locating through Mazandaran province. The method of the research is based on descriptive-analytical approach and the method of multi-criteria decision- making and geographical information system (GIS) is used for locating. Based on this, at the first by categorizing the environmental criteria of health tourism`s locating in three groups of 1)service criteria, 2)resources & infrastructures, 3) competitiveness capability and identification of their sub criteria and their items, referred to experts and prioritizing the criteria was determined. After formation of paired matrices and weighing on the criteria,