Medical Tourism Demand to Türkiye: Sub-Sectoral Panel Data Estimations

ABSTRACTThis study examines the medical tourism demand in terms of determining factors by using aggregated data according to the scales of the firms operating in health services sector of Türkiye. Health supply conditions, marketing activities, real exchange rate and tourist income are considered as explanatory variables in the medical tourism demand function estimated within the framework of the panel generalized method of moments (GMM). The annual data covers the period 2009–2019. The findings show that medical tourism revenues of the country are affected positively by its lagged value, tourist income, health supply conditions and marketing activities, and negatively by the real exchange rate. Furthermore, the findings indicate that medical tourism to Türkiye is more strongly affected by tourist income and especially by real exchange rate compared to other explanatory variables of the estimated model. This conclusion supports that price-based preferences of medical tourists are significantly stronger in the medical tourism demand for Türkiye, despite the significant progress in health service delivery and health supply conditions in this country.KEYWORDS: Medical tourism demandhealth supply conditionsmarketing activitiespanel GMM Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).