Analysis of the effect of health status on health tourism using panel data methods

Health tourism is a rapidly spreading sector around the world, whose importance is increasing due to its capacity to create high added value, strong development potential, diversification in the tourism sector and economy, and its ability to contribute to many suppliers and related sectors. For this reason, the literature on health tourism is growing rapidly. However, studies have mainly investigated the factors that facilitate health tourism, the impact of health tourism on the health system of the destination or country of origin, the determining factors in patients' destination preferences, the medical complications experienced and the risks of medical travel. Health indicators are mathematical or statistical measures that indicate the health status of a particular population. These criteria, which are used in the planning and evaluation of health services, are important scientific bases in terms of revealing the level of development, fair income distribution and equitable health service provision of the country in question. In the literature, the number of studies examining the effect of health indicators of countries on health tourism is quite limited and only a few countries have been researched. For this reason, the effect of health status on health tourism has been the subject of our thesis research. In this study, the relationship between health tourism revenues and health indicators was examined and it was tried to determine to what extent the destination preferences of health tourists are related to the health indicators of the countries. In this context, 74 countries, which include data for 18 different parameters during the years 2010-2019, were examined within the scope of the study. The data of these countries were analyzed by panel data methods based on the health tourism demand function. In our health tourism demand function model; one-period lagged value of health tourism revenues, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), health status of countries (life expectancy at birth, neonatal mortality rate per 1000 live births, under-5 mortality rate per 1000 live births, per 100,000 live births maternal mortality rate, death rate per 1000 people), government health expenditure and countries' social and political stability and absence of terrorist incidents index values are included. In the research results, it was determined that among the health indicators, especially the decrease in the mortality rate under the age of 5, positively affected health tourism revenues. It was found that a 1-unit decrease in the under-5 mortality rate increased health tourism revenues by 0.0003%. It was observed that the health status variable that supports health tourism revenues the most is DEATH, and the health status variable that supports the least is MORT2. According to all countries, developed countries and developing countries, a 1 unit increase in the previous value of the HT variable and the stability and security indices of the countries and a 1% increase in the share of health expenditures in the GDP of the countries will have a positive effect of 0.9%, 0.0941% and 0.0201% respectively on health tourism revenues. In our generalized method of moments analysis, it was determined that a 1% increase in GDP per capita caused health tourism revenues to decrease by 0.0250%. Considering the findings of the research, it shows that the health status of the countries, state health expenditures, political and social stability of the countries, word of-mouth promotion and GDP are significantly effective in the destination preference of health tourists.