Evaluation of Factors Affecting the Attraction of Medical Tourism in New Settlements (A Case Study of Khavaran Settlement)

In recent years, especially in developing countries, medical tourism has become an important business. Medical tourism in countries has resulted in generating economic revenue, GDP development, increased job creation, preventing brain drain, and improving infrastructure. Considering that Iran is a single-product country, the development of the tourism industry as a strong source of currency can cause the country's economic prosperity. The main objectives of the research are the development of the health sector and the creation of a medical tourism hub in the province, and the development of the job market of the service sector. The type of research is applied and its method is descriptive-analytical. Data were collected through books, articles, dissertations, related research, field data, and questionnaires (based on the Likert scale) The statistical population of the study consisted of specialists in tourism and medical affairs of Tabriz, whose questionnaire consisted of 25 items in four parts: political factors, insurance factor, residential facilities factors, and hospital and pharmacological factors that have been distributed among 200 people and the results have been analyzed using the SPSS software. Based on the results of the data, the hospital factor with 33%, the residential facilities factor with 30%, the political factor with 22%, and the insurance factor with 15% are the priorities of one to four effective factors in attracting medical tourism in hospital towns, respectively.