Measuring the competitiveness of Iran's health tourism

High competitiveness of the destination is one of the key factors of success and reaping the benefits of tourism in the international tourism market. Accordingly, this paper seeks to identify the determinants of health tourism competitiveness in Iran using customised indicators and Dwyer's integrated model. The selection of competitiveness indicators is based on a three-stage web-based Delphi survey. After selecting the 138 indicators and categorising them into six groups, the questionnaire was developed and 119 questionnaires were completed through a web survey. The results revealed that among six key determinants of health tourism competitiveness, only endowed resources have relatively favourable conditions and the overall images of Iran's health tourism are not competitive. Such results may be an important step to understand the strengths and weaknesses of health tourism in Iran and can be used as a guide for tourism planners and policy-makers to adopt appropriate policies.