Abstract
Nowadays, people are in search of both travelling in good suitable conditions and having different holiday experiences. Long waiting times, high costs and health insurance problems force some people to go abroad for treatment. This has led to an increase in the demand of external resources and thus the emergence of healthcare tourism. Healthcare tourism is a type of service tourism in which various medical and non-medical treatments are offered in combination with travel and accommodation services. Health tourism includes travelling from one's permanent place of accommodation to another country or region for the purpose of receiving medical (organ transplantation, surgeries, dental and eye treatments, diagnostic services, etc.) or non-medical (plastic surgery operations, wellness and fitness, geriatric care and treatments, etc.) services.
This research studies healthcare tourism as an important aspect in the second decade of the 21st century and Turkey’s role in healthcare tourism. Turkey is poised to become a hub of healthcare tourism via government, private sector and specialized institutions such as USHAŞ and therefore provides a set of activities in which preventive, therapeutic, rehabilitative or supportive health services are offered together with transportation, accommodation and leisure time options.