The concept of "health tourism", which emerged as people travel outside of their location for treatment and unites the tourism sector with the health sector, was negatively affected by the changing attitudes and behaviors of countries with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before Covid 19, 3-4% of the world population was traveling for health tourism every year in the world, and the share of health tourism was around 500 billion dollars. As well as the infrastructure that Turkey, with its trained manpower, facilities with high quality and affordable services, factors such as the state with the support and hospitality was an important actor in this field. So much so that in the first quarter of 2020, 143,266 patients received health services in our country within the scope of health tourism (USHAŞ). However, with the pandemic, restrictions on transportation and hospitals' allocation of resources to fight the pandemic caused its operation to become complicated. At the same time, with the COVID 19 pandemic, planning and strategies differed, patients began to avoid unnecessary travel. Demand for voluntary and low-risk treatments under health tourism has also stalled, as international travel has been interrupted by pandemic measures.
Considering all these, it can be said that closing the borders of countries with the Covid 19 outbreak has brought health tourism to a halt and the pandemic has negatively affected the development of health tourism. In this sense, it is important to work on what can be done in order to recover health tourism in our country after the Covid 19 pandemic and to encourage tourists who will start to visit our country again within the scope of health tourism.
Res. Asst. Semanur OKTAY
