Developing Strategies for Increasing Market Share of Turkey on Health Tourism by Using Fuzzy AHP Method

OpenAlex İngilizce

The purpose of this study is to develop health tourism strategies in order to get more share of the international market. In this scope, firstly the negatives for health tourism of Turkey are examined by researching literature. Then a fuzzy AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method was employed in the study. The decision-making group consists of the health tourism and management and strategy experts of hospital and university who have at least twelve years of experience. According to analysis findings, decision makers primarily chose the subjects of Insufficient legal sanctions for faulty applications, lack of coordination with agencies and insurance companies abroad and insufficient number of physicians and health personnel who can speak a foreign language and qualified. For increasing market share of Turkey on health tourism priority strategies can be as follows; legal regulations should be made that are comprehensive, future-oriented and protect all stakeholders, including important organs of the public and private sector and complication insurance may be required, in order to ensure the coordination of national and international stakeholders, the conference, fairs and events should be increased and each stakeholder should be taken into account, and finally in order to increase the foreign language skills of physicians and healthcare personnel, it is necessary to cooperate with Ministry of Health, Ministry of National Education and Universities.