Thermal tourism as an example of health tourism: Reviewing its place on the Turkish health tourism with different aspects

It is widely known that people have been using medicinal herbs for the purpose of treatment of their health since ancient times. It is known that, in the beginnings, the medicinal herbs were used for different purposes, later, there have gained importance for tourism. The increasing awareness for the medicinal herbs that used in the regional level before crossing the country borders with the help of technology and ease of travel. It can be said that most of the traveling centers of the people are health facilities and thermal facilities. It can be said that Turkey has important resources in terms of thermal sources. In this thesis, the place of Turkey on medical tourism, and its advantages and disadvantages are tried to explain. Thermal tourism is discussed as a type of medical tourism of which current situation and the data of the thermal facilities are tried to evaluate by using descriptive analysis method. Moreover, the SWOT analysis is conducted according to the studies in the current literature, and the data of the tourism facilities. Moreover, current issues are tried to determine according to the negative comments about thermal hotels on tripadvisor website. When such comments are reviewed, while Turkey is a resource-rich country in terms of thermal sources, and has many thermal facilities, is not disregarded by foreign tourists, the duration of their visits to thermal facilities is short, the facilities are dilapidated, and the served thermal services are not well enough.