HEALTH TOURISM AS A RISING BUSINESS AND ITS IMPACT ON ISTANBUL’S MARKET FROM A HOSPITAL’S POINT OF VIEW

Abstract

The concept of the health or medical tourism has developed rapidly around the world for the last few decades with the increase in health costs, lack of healthcare in home state, the cooperation between countries, simplicity of transportation, and higher quality and lower expenses of the health services in the foreign countries. Medical tourism is a sector affecting related sectors such as travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, and consultation, from financial perspectives. Therefore, trade in health services has been growing globally. In recent years, one of the leading countries in exports of health tourism is Turkey. This thesis study aims to explore why people are heading to Turkey (Istanbul) for medical treatments and plastic surgeries, and how the health tourism effects Turkey’s healthcare industry and economy in relation with similar countries. In this context, a research was carried out on 310 patients who received services from a medical center and its 4 branches located in Istanbul. In order to collect data suitable for the study purposes, a questionnaire with a sociodemographic form and four different scales were prepared by the researcher. The sociodemographic form consists of 8 questions including age, gender, marital status, education level, nationality, salary, occupation, and country of residence. The scales include basic information of medical travel (10 items), general perception on Turkey and medical tourism in Turkey (11 items), perceived quality of medical treatment (20 items), perceived value, overall satisfaction and future intention (10 items). Scales concerning perceptions of the medical treatment in Turkey were designed according to 7-points Likert scale. Data were collected through online data collection tools (Google docs) from the participants. The participants consist of patients who visited Turkey for any types of medical treatment. The SPSS Statistical analysis program vi

was used to analyze the collected data. Frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, and correlations were calculated, statistical analyses including ANOVA test and t-test were utilized on the data sets of variables, and then discussed thoroughly. The findings revealed that the patients who visited Turkey for medical operations were mostly in their 20s and 30s. It was determined that these patients were upper-class individuals based on the world economic standards and have a high education level. It is seen that they were mostly self-employers and most of them were from Middle Eastern countries. Research findings confirmed all the hypotheses of the study. According to this, there exists a significant relationship between the sociodemographic characteristics and research variables (perception on Turkey and its Medical Tourism; perceived quality of medical treatment; perceived value, overall satisfaction and future intention.). Additionally, there is a significant relationship between perceived value and overall satisfaction; perceived value and future intention; and overall satisfaction and future intention.