Assessing Preparation Level of Medical Tourism in Zahedan City

Abstract

Purpose- The objective of this study is assessing preparation level of the city of Zahedan in carrying out activities concerned with medical tourism. The objective is demonstrated in the framework of assessing the status quo of medical tourism in Zahedan in four areas of “hospital Facilities/Services”, “Hotels, Food and Beverage”, “Tourism Facilities” and “Governmental Factors”.

Design/methodology/approach- The research method adopted in the study is descriptive-survey. The population of the research includes managers, medical experts from Zahedan hospitals. To attain the objectives a questionnaire was designed in four main parts of Zahedan medical tourist system based on Likert.

Research limitations/implications- The limitation of this paper is the needs to find the hospital and health experts that have view about tourism industry in Zahedan.

Practical implications- The main implication of this paper is for Zahedan city to do better for the health tourism management. Also this paper improves the health tourism system model in the developing countries .

Originality/value- this paper exam the systematic model for managing medical tourism in Zahedan city as tourism destination. This systematic model explores the main elements of medical tourism destination. 

Findings- The results showed that Zahedan has some shortcomings in carrying out activities concerning medical tourism. The shortcomings include low costs of treatment and accommodation, having no various historical and recreational places, having no experts in treatment, endemic diseases, no serving of a diet appropriate to patients and bad attitudes among people of other towns.

Keywords: medical tourism, medical tours, hospital experts, Zahedan.