MEDICAL TOURISM COMPETITION: THE CASE OF TURKEY

Abstract

Productivity differences between countries lead to gain trade. According to the Heckscher-Ohlin model, differences in labor skills and physical capital between countries cause productive differences and then increases competitive power. In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the medical services market and related international trade in the world. Turkey is one of the countries with high competitiveness in this market and wants to increase the market volume.Because it has relatively better service quality, the well-equipped hospitals, geographical location and large comparative cost advantage. The aim of this paper is to examine Turkey’s competitiveness as a popular health care destination in the world.

               
The health sector is a very important sector for developing countries, in terms of both income and employment. It includes many sub-sectors such as hospitals, medical devices, clinical trials. Also, beach tourism and natural resources are important in terms of income and employment but have seasonality problem. In order to the sustainable of the tourism sector,  health tourism is crucial. Turkey aims to increase tourism revenues by differentiating service diversity especially in health tourism areas. 
With its natural resources, qualified human power and geographical position, Turkey has an important competitive power in health tourism.

Keywords

• Medical tourism,Turkey

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