Identifying and prioritizing the factors affecting the management of health tourism development in Fars province

Abstract Background and Aim: Macro policies in the field of health tourism should be designed and implemented taking into account the facilities and environmental resources in order to provide a good opportunity to provide quality medical services to foreign patients referring to the country and create their satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to identify and prioritize the factors affecting the management of health tourism development in Fars province. Methods: In this qualitative-exploratory study, 20 experts in the field of health tourism were selected as the research sample by purposive sampling method with maximum diversity. Research data were collected after informed consent from participants through semi-structured in-depth interviews; and then registered in Maxqda-10 software, and was analyzed using a combination of directional and summary thematic analysis. Also, prioritization of the relative weight of the identified influencing factors was performed using Expert Choice software. Results: The results of this study showed that the factors affecting the management of health tourism development in Fars province consist of 5 main categories including: structural factors, development and optimization, environmental, behavioral, and protective. The relative weights identified for each of these factors were 0.512, 0.276, 0.128, 0.053 and 0.032, respectively. Conclusion: According to the results, managers and relevant officials are expected to be able to manage and promote the development of health tourism in Fars province by policy in the areas of structural factors, development and optimization, environmental, behavioral, and protective.