THE EVALUATION OF THE DIGITAL MARKETING ACTIVITIES OF THERMAL FACILITIES AND JCI ACCREDITED HOSPITALS IN TERMS OF HEALTH TOURISM

Abstract

Promoting the products and services to the people located in different areas of the World and interacting with the target markets have always been a hard process for the enterprises that operate in the field of health tourism. With the developments in information and communication Technologies, internet and mobile Technologies has smoothed the ways of accessing information, shopping, socializing, having fun, and seeking for information without any time or place constraints with very low costs. The enterprises which want to benefit from the digitalized World have started to move their marketing activities to digital platforms. In this context, the aim of this study was identified as to evaluate the digital marketing activities of thermal facilities and JCI accredited hospitals, and to make a comparison between them. This study was designed as a descriptive study. Content analyzing method was used to evaluate the digital marketing activities of thermal facilities and JCI accredited hospitals. Totally, 73 thermal facilities’ and 30 JCI accredited hospitals’ digital marketing activities were evaluated. The collected data was coded by the researcher. Frequency and percentage distributions were calculated. It has been found that 38,4%of the thermal facilities do not have a web page in English or in another language. Also, it has been seen that, opposite to accredited hospitals, there was no enough information about the staff. It can be concluded for the enterprises that operate in the field of health tourism to use web sites and social media channels more efficient. Efficient use of these channels can allow the health tourism enterprises to interact with their target market through producing content according to the needs or wants of them. In addition, sharing information and creating content can be considered as a strategy to pull the target market.