SA？LIK TUR？ZM？ ？ER？EVES？NDE TüRK？YE’DE TERMAL TUR？ZM; B？R SWOT ANAL？Z？ ？ALI？MASI - HEALTH TOURISM IN TURKEY UNDER THERMAL TOURISM; A SWOT ANALYSIS STUDY

International or intercity treatment and leisure travels are described as "health tourism". Technological developments brought about by globalization and facilitating factors such as the increase in travel opportunities and easier access to information has led to the widespread use of health tourism. In the last decade, health tourism has included hospital-based treatment services, rehabilitation services and geriatric care. This change in health tourism has caused changes in the service areas of health tourism. Many countries seeking to increase their share of health tourism, which has reached a volume of around $ 100 billion worldwide by 2017, are creating legal frameworks and the national health sector provides support and incentives to increase competitive power. Turkey nearly completed their health infrastructure with the transformation in healthcare program. It also is a country with an already high tourism potential and sees health tourism as an alternative tourism source and makes arrangements to increase its share in this new market. The rehabilitation services of health tourism also increase the importance of thermal tourism, which is shifting to areas such as aged-handicapped care. Turkey is a country rich in thermal springs, and this adds additional importance to thermal tourism.The main goal of this research is to determine the strengths and weaknesses and to identify the opportunities and threats, caused by internal and external conditions, of Turkeys “Thermal Health Tourism” through a SWOT analysi