ANALYSIS AND FORECASTS ON THE HEALTHCARE TOURISM INCOME OF TURKEY

Abstract

Turkey is one of the new centers of attraction for healthcare tourism with increasing efforts for improvement at policy making level. In link with the specific targets for healthcare tourism income set by the government, this study aims to analyze historical data of healthcare tourism income of Turkey over 2002-2015 and provide future forecasts. Both annual and quarterly healthcare tourism income data are analyzed to investigate the share of healthcare tourism income in aggregate tourism income and to search for seasonal effects. Results indicate that relying on the high correlation between aggregate tourism and healthcare tourism income, healthcare tourism income can be presented and forecasted as a percentage of annual tourism income. Seasonality is observed for the aggregate tourism income, where it is also present for healthcare tourism income between 2002 and 2009. It is also found that Turkey has an upward trend in health and aggregate tourism income.

Keywords

• Tourism Income,healthcare tourism income,forecasting

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