Designing a Model for the Management of Health Tourism Development in Fars Province, Iran

Introduction: Health tourism as a basic parameter has an undeniable role in achieving sustainable growth and development and has been given special attention in developed countries, while in developing countries such as Iran, less attention has been paid to this issue. This study aimed at designing a management model for the development of health tourism in Fars Province, Iran. Methods: This study was performed by descriptive-correlation method which is a type of applied research in terms of quiddity and purpose. The sample consisted of 120 foreign tourists who have traveled to Fars province to receive health services. All participants were selected by the purposive sampling method within a survey design from medical tourism centers, wellness tourism centers, and curative tourism centers in Shiraz City of the province. After informed consent was obtained, the required quantitative data were collected using a survey method and a questionnaire. The questionnaire used had 6 sections including: (1) structural management; (2) behavioral management; (3) environmental management; (4) protective management; (5) development and improvement management; and (6) development of health tourism, which had 34 items and each item was scored based on a five-point Likert scale (from 1=very low to 5=very high). Data analysis was performed with SPSS-20 and Smart-PLS software. Results: In this study at first, validity and reliability analyses using SEM for Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability (CR) of subscales and total score of the questionnaire revealed an moderate to excellent level of internal consistency (a=0.62 to 0.91 and CR=0.68 to 0.98), respectively. The findings indicated that independent variables of model explain 0.921% of health tourism management variations in this sample. With regards to the path coefficients between latent constructs of the model, three structural (0.315), behavioral (0.459), environmental (0.234) factors have a significant effect on health tourism management in this study (T 1.96 and 2.58). Conclusion: Managers and officials of Fars province are expected to use the management model presented in this study to develop health tourism and focus on the pillars of sustainable development of this model such as structural, behavioral, environmental, protective and development factors for attracting foreign tourists and promoting health tourism in Fars province.