ROLE OF INTERMEDIARIES IN MEDICAL TOURISM MARKET

Tourism is the fastest developing industry in the world in terms of employment generation and addition to national income .After having reached a historic milestone of one billion people traveling the world annually in 2012, tourism has maintained its momentum of growth and is expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2020 .health tourism is onetype of tourism that it consists of three parts: wellness tourism, curative tourism and medical tourism .The aim of this study was to investigate role of intermediaries in medical tourism marketing. In medical tourism market, several sections are considered as effective factors for the decision of medical tourists to choose the destination of medical tourism that include medical tourism marketing companies or agency, medical tourism marketing websites, medical tourism marketing of hospitals and health clinics and medical broker. Market based on approximately 14 million cross-border patients worldwide spending an average of USD 3,800-6,000 per visit, including medically-relatedcosts, cross-border and local transport, inpatient stay and accommodations .In this paper, deliberate or purpose sampling in used and researcher has taken a deep interview with 30 people of managers of companies, hospitals , medical tourism agencies and agents in India. In this study the most important conclusion is that medical touristscommonly employ agent or broker to choose destination for medical treatment.

کلیدواژه ها:

health tourism ، medical tourism ، marketing ، intermediaries ، IPD