Background & 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 the present study was to identify and prioritize the factors affecting the management of health tourism development in Fars province.
Methods: The present qualitative-exploratory study was conducted in 2019. 20 experts active in the field of health tourism were selected by purposive sampling method with maximum diversity. After obtaining informed consent from the participants, the research data were collected by semi-structured in-depth interview method and then recorded in Maxqda-10 software and analyzed using directional and summary composite content analysis. In this method, the units of analysis in each step were the paragraphs recorded by the researcher in the process of interviewing the participants. During the content analysis process, different codes were first reviewed, then grouped into subcategories, and finally 70 subcategories and 23 main categories. The five themes of structural, behavioral, environmental, conservation and development were integrated. The collected data were analyzed using paired comparison matrix test with hierarchical analysis process.
Results: The results of the present study revealed 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: Structural, developmental and optimization, environmental, behavioral, and conservation factors had relative weight and significant incompatibility rates for health tourism development management. Therefore, the results of the present study inform high-level decision makers where and how to focus their efforts and resources to have the maximum impact on the management of health tourism development at the local and national levels.